...So by the way, we bought a house last week. We've been reluctant to publicize it all too much until everything is settled with the contracts and such ("we almost bought a house"), but now we're 99% set (just waiting for a final lawyer sign-off on a quibble about a few repairs). We are homeowners! Or rather, I should say,

We are homeowners!

Yeah, it all turned out fairly easy in the end – incredibly stressful of course, and spending far more money than I've probably spent the rest of my life put together, but in a month or two we will be the proud residents of our own 3-bedroom home with 2-car garage.

It turned out this was a house we actually looked at in the early days of our real estate hunting, a month or two ago. In the meantime the market in Auckland has continued to stagnate, a bit like the US is right now but not quite as dramatic. We kept it on our list of "maybes" and returned to look at it last week now that we had a better idea of what we wanted. It had even had a nice little price drop in the meantime, and on a second look we really liked it. Fenced yard, quiet neighborhood, a bit of land which is a rarity in Auckland central, and in very nice shape with a good deal of space. And just 3km (a little less than two miles) from where I work!

Once you make a decision – "I want that" – the process suddenly gets mighty fast. We looked at the house Wednesday morning, and by Thursday afternoon the owners had accepted our offer after a bit of batting back and forth. Egad! The last week has been filled with zipping around (mostly by lovely wife) to make the final deals, get the place inspected, et cetera. We should go "unconditional" by Monday and be able to sit back and wait until we move into our own house for the first time since August 2006, and the first place we've owned, well... ever!

Now that we decided to buy a place, we've realized how we basically have no furniture to our names (having sold our Wal-Mart vintage fare in the US before we left). So we get to start shopping so we actually have something to put in our house! After saving a lot of money this past year, it's suddenly going to start going away real soon, ain't it?

Now that I've dropped our big news, I'm going to take a little blog break right now. My parents are visiting from the US for a few weeks so there's much time spent with them, my day job is absolutely full-out crazy busy, and there's much to do before we move into our future home in early January. See you soon!

Birthday greetings from ... Michael Palin!

Well, not really, except that for my birthday outing last night Avril and I did get a chance to go out and enjoy a very fun talk by Michael Palin, my favorite ex-Monty Python and a fantastic documentary travel filmmaker. Palin was out promoting his new BBC series, "New Europe" and spoke over on Auckland's North Shore. We had great seats, just 5 rows from the stage.

Palin has done an excellent job re-imagining himself post-Python and "A Fish Called Wanda" with his travel docs and accompanying books – "Around The World In 80 Days," "Pole To Pole," "Full Circle," "Sahara" and "Himalaya." His latest, "New Europe," takes a spin around the former eastern bloc countries and how they've changed in the past 20 years. Palin gave a great off-the-cuff 45-minute talk about his travels, digressing all over the place from his Python days to visits to the South and North Poles. We heard about nudist Albanian chefs, leeches in Estonia, falling off mountains in Italy, mines in Bosnia and his favorite movie role (the reluctant centurion in "Life Of Brian," curiously enough). As you might expect, it was all pretty hilarious, with Palin doing some excellent impressions of the people he's met in his travels. He also was interviewed and took some audience questions. I can't imagine too many other second acts in public life quite as cool as what Palin's been doing these last 20 years.

Great talk, great fun, and left with a head full of amazing journeys. Missed out on getting Palin to sign a just-purchased paperback of his "Diaries 1969-1979" which I've been wanting to read, as the line was a couple hundred people long, but I've never been huge on signed books anyway. The talk itself was great, and can't wait to see "New Europe" when it starts screening here next month.

Thirty-six

...It's been a really crazy couple of weeks down under (more details on that forthcoming), so when I woke up this morning it took me like an hour to remember I'm another year older today. 36, egad, which has a weirdly lop-sided feel to it, leaning heavily toward 40 and beyond. In my head a good two-thirds of the time I still feel rather like a clueless 18-year-old still trying to figure out the way the world works, the sudden understanding and authority I expected to be here by now not quite in play.

Anyway. 36. An age I actually remember my parents being, which seemed incredibly god-like at that time. And as you can see, in 1973, fashion was at its height. 36. Whoa.

Walking through Winnipeg with the Weakerthans

The winds of Canada blow wild and cold. At least, that's what I hear – I've never been to the depths of Manitoba, but after listening to the last few albums by the Weakerthans, I have a firm sense of place built up in my head. They make me feel like I've been there.

The Winnipeg band was forged in the fire of punk rock, with singer/lyricist John K. Samson coming from the band Propaghandi. He created The Weakerthans after looking for a less rigid form for his intricate songwriting. The Weakerthans combine a kind of country-tinged post-punk with sweeping storytelling that's like hearing a Raymond Carver story set to music.

Their fourth and latest album, Reunion Tour, doesn't break huge ground from their stunning last disc, 2003's Reconstruction Site. Instead it's merely lovely, warm and dense, another gem-filled tour of hooks and wry lyrics and better than 90 percent of the bands out there. It's full of telling details that evoke some of their fellow Winnipeg singer, Neil Young, but it's got a kind of humble awe all its own.

Samson's subject matter reveals his eye for the downtrodden and worn-out folk of life. The power-chord guitar rock of "Tournament of Hearts" is actually about the terminally uncool Canadian sport of curling – as the narrator at a curling match thinks of his lost love: "I slide right through the day, I'm always throwing hack weight." The gorgeous "Civil Twilight" pays ode to a worn-out bus driver lost in his thoughts: "My confusion-cornered commuters are cursing the cold away," goes another note-perfect couplet of lyrics.

The songs skirt the edge of pretentiousness – for instance, one song on both this album and the last are narrated by a cat named Virtute – but the nonchalant air of Samson's voice pulls this off, like a combination of Robyn Hitchcock, Wilco and an Elvis Costello who grew up on the Canadian prairies. Samson's work is intricately married to the Winnipeg surroundings, with local characters and legends all mythologized in his work.

Even that mysterious denizen of the north woods gets his own tune in "Bigfoot!," which features a sasquatch believer holding faith despite the mockery of his small town neighbors:
"I'll go through it all again
watch their doubtful smiles begin
When the visions that I see believe in me."

Perhaps my favorite song on Reunion Tour is the wistful "Sun In An Empty Room," a delicately drawn portrait of leaving a home behind that's inspired by an Edward Hopper painting:
"The black on our fingers smeared the ink on every door pulled shut /
Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit."

Samson's lyrics offer rewards on repeated listens – it's worth the somewhat lengthy wait between Weakerthans albums (four discs in a decade; they haven't broken up, so I guess the Reunion Tour title is a bit of an in-joke). The Weakerthans provide surpassingly intelligent, yet hook-filled and accessible rock. They're a Canadian treasure worth searching for.

Big bang boom

...One of the odder New Zealand institutions I've seen is that of Guy Fawkes Day, which, as "V For Vendetta" taught us all, "remember, remember, the fifth of November," commemorates a failed plot by a crazed Catholic activist to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the King of England back in 1605. Which somehow turned into a holiday where people blow up lots of fireworks, a kind of British version of July 4. Although considering the origins, it's kind of like having an Osama Bin Laden Day, when you think about it.

Fireworks, you say? Not that different from the ol' US of A's tradition every July 4 and New Year's, eh? Well, not quite. The fireworks they sell here are major caliber, the kind that shoot up in the air 50 feet and explode or make huge thudding booms. They're far larger than any fireworks I've seen for sale to civilians in the US in the several states I've lived in. And they are LOUD, ye god – the prime minister (who lives in our neighbourhood) was quoted as saying it "sounded like Afghanistan" which isn't too far-fetched, minus the bombings and death and what-not. It's all a bit over the top.

Worse still, people seem to hoard their fireworks so you don't just have one or two nights of fireworks, but local Beavis and Butthead-types will regularly blow a few off from now until February.

And of course you get accidents like this one. Or this one.

Yeah, I like the idea of Guy Fawkes, and the sight of all those fireworks from the top of Mt. Eden last year was truly an amazing canvas, but I have to fall on the side of those who say it's a little too extreme a celebration here for its own good. Particularly when you consider we're thousands of miles from Britain and well on the way to being a true republic one day anyway. I'd love to see 'em ban the fireworks sales and just put on a few public spectacular shows.

The great house-hunt update #1

...So things are looking quite optimistic on the house front for us. No, we haven't found our dream home yet, but perhaps more importantly, we have the money lined up to do that. We met our mortgage broker the other day and now have what's know as "pre-approved financing" for a decent amount – more than I'd imagined we could get when we started looking, but still within our budget so repayments don't kill us. Hurray, we can go into debt! We've also gone to 20-25 open houses in the past month or so, and have considerably refined our views from "we need a place to live" to "we'd like a 3-bedroom standalone house with a bit of yard space in a quiet area" and we're focusing quite closely on one area of Auckland now. So that's good.

As our broker (still feels funny talking about "our broker") said, "Now you just have to go out and find that house!" Which is the most complicated part of all, I guess... We've seen probably 4-5 places we could imagine living in, although none of them were totally perfect and none probably will be. But heck, the idea of being in our own place again by the start of 2008 isn't looking too far-fetched these days at all...

Five freaky films for Halloween

Hey, who doesn't like scary movies when it's this time of year? I've never cared for the whole slasher-serial killer mode (no "Friday the 13th"/"Saw" for me, thank you). But a good horror movie gets the blood pumping and the fear coursing out of your system. A great one haunts you like a half-remembered nightmare. Here's what I would call my five favorite horror movies, admittedly heavily weighed to stuff from the last 25 years or so.

The Fly (1986) - This one has had a creepy fascination for me ever since it first came out. A remake of a goofy '50s flick, it takes the notion of transformation to its furthest possible extent, with a stunning performance by Jeff Goldblum as an eccentric scientist who goes way too far. David Cronenberg pushes the limits of our unease as we watch a man disintegrate, turning into something utterly alien. The ending may be as gory as you've ever seen, but the whole enterprise carries a wounded human soul that keeps it from just being a nasty piece of exploitation (unlike the utterly awful sequel starring Eric Stolz). In Goldblum's Brundlefly, we find a metaphor for anyone who's ever felt like a stranger in their own skin, from a teen with zits to a man being consumed by cancer. Best moment: Brundlefly's "insect politics" speech, a man's farewell to his own life.

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) - OK, admittedly a man in a giant rubber suit isn't as cutting-edge today as it once was. But this one scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid, the freaky gill-man emerging from the depths to claw and destroy the human invaders. The gill-man is as iconic as all the rest of the big scary monsters that are actually a little sympathetic, from Frankenstein to King Kong. I actually did a long post on this classic flick and its sequels a few years back, so go read it here. The gill-man is one of the great, campy aspects and all, and perhaps my favorite "classic" horror film. Best moment: The gill man "swims" with the lovely Julie Adams.

The Thing (1982)- Another remake that blew wide open the ideas of the original. John Carpenter remade a '50s monster mash as a kind of existential, gore-splattered "Ten Little Indians," with a team of Antarctic researchers being whittled away by an ever-shifting menace. The special effects remain nauseatingly effective today, leaving you with the sense that flesh is just meat waiting to be reshaped. The setting may be the true star here, although Kurt Russell is at his gritty best as the leading man. Best moment: That grim ending, as stark and cold as the Antarctic ice itself, punctuated by Ennio Morricone's relentless drone of a soundtrack.

Silence of the Lambs (1993) - Hmm, is this horror, precisely, or thriller? Either way, the movie scared the heck out of me, often with nothing more than the imagery of a madman behind a glass wall, teasing his way into his interrogator's mind. As smoothly machined a piece of storytelling as you'll find, it still has a bleak, soulful unease that lifts it above the conventions of the genre – still hard to believe this won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It dives deeper into the notion of purely human horror than any movie I can think of, with Anthony Hopkins' indelible portrait of Hannibal Lecter a chiller despite being watered down in poorly imagined sequels galore. Best moment: The escape of Hannibal Lecter, and the moment when you realize how he did it.

Evil Dead II (1985). I personally like my horror to have a hint of humor in it (which is why torture-porn like "Saw" has absolutely no appeal for me). The second screen adventure of Ash is easily the best, balancing the claustrophobic freakiness of the original with the cornball humor of the third movie. Bruce Campbell's take-charge he-man is the template for a thousand adventurers, and that whole cabin-in-the-woods horror schtick has never been put to better use. As wacky as a "Three Stooges" short, but still with some genuine scares as well. Best moment: Ash's own severed hand attacks him, of course!

What's not on my list that could've been: I like "Alien," but just feel like it's a science fiction flick. "Psycho" is great as is much of Hitchcock, but not as scary now as it once was. "The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick is a gorgeous looking, hugely unsettling movie, but somehow, it's a little too over the top in its glacial chill. I have to admit I find Stephen King's original book better develops the story and characters. "The Bride of Frankenstein" was a near-miss – awesome movie, not really too scary to modern eyes though. And zombie movies – I had like a three-way tie going between "Shaun of the Dead," "Dawn of the Dead" (1978) and "Dead-Alive" (aka "Brain Dead"), but couldn't quite settle between 'em. So I gave it to "Evil Dead II" instead. And as for "Halloween" itself - I have to make a guilty confession - I've never seen it! Good lord, how dare I write about Halloween movies?

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip...

So today (or Thursday, depending on what time zone you're in) marks one year since we arrived in New Zealand, starting our so-called brand new lives!

We stumbled into Auckland a year ago laden down with overly burdened suitcases, knowing we had a place to stay with my in-laws but really, not much else. We weren't exactly huddled masses on Ellis Island, but it was still a jarring change from all we knew. But here we are – we're jobbed, day-cared and relatively settled, with the exception of having a nice little house truly of our own. Hopefully we'll get that nut cracked by year's end or so as signs are pretty positive on that front.

It's strange, though, to realize that it's been one year since I set foot on that American soil I spent most of my first 35 years on. I've lived in a "foreign country" for an entire year. The thing is, New Zealand doesn't feel entirely foreign to me. What with the language and British culture, it's not like living in Rio or Ulan Bator. Instead, it's rather like a kind of parallel universe to the American-centric one – many things are the same, some are similar, and some are just different enough to confuse you.

It's been interesting defining my identity as an American and my relationship to the US of A in this time. You definitely realize how low the current US political scene is held in view by pretty much everyone, particularly the British tabloid news services that are popular here. You do get a sense that Americans are viewed as a bit arrogant, a bit blundering and oblivious – a stereotype I try to do my best to dispel. I've met a couple kiwis that are real yobbos ("uncouth") too but I don't imagine they're all like this, and neither are all Americans loud, uncurious and insulated.

I do miss America, quite a lot, the generosity of spirit and casual kindnesses that aren't always transmitted to the broader world. I miss the landscapes, which are infinitely varied and the sense of sheer space that is missing in a sometimes-claustrophobic place like Auckland. There's a frontier poetry to America which sometimes gets obscured in the latest political screw-ups, but I do believe that the idea of America is very much alive and well, and worth being a part of. And of course I miss family and friends quite a lot. I can't rule out living there again one day.

But overall I'm very glad we did this, that I got to be the foreign one in this marriage for a while. We tried not to set goals when we moved here, knowing it might not work out (another couple we knew who moved here at the same time only lasted 9 months, after all). But now that we've got good jobs and are house-hunting away, I guess it's safe to say I'll be a kiwi for a while to come. Cheers mates!

The Incredible Question Kid*

Do you know monster trucks ride in the water?
Did you know snakes eat worms?
Why are there barnacles?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Yeah, this is kind of what life with a 3 1/2-year-old is like... one big question. These past few months, Peter has suddenly become the Question Machine constantly bubbling over with queries, qualifications and quizzes, either seeking to expand his knowledge or tell us what he knows.
Did you know that aliens are wet?
What is moisture?
Why am I saying why?
Why?
Why?
It is kind of cool that our little man has become so interested in all things (volcanoes are his latest subject of obsession, followed by the still-fascinating notion of tractors, diggers and things that come out of one's butt). On the other hand it's a bit like being interrogated by a really determined midget all the time. In a few years he will of course assume he knows it all and reply to all new information with haughty disdain, so I guess we'd best enjoy it while it lasts.
How long is it done?
Why is my picture on the computer?
Why?

*And holy moses! This is my 800th post!

The Favorites #2: Music, blogs, TV

I know, I know, I'm an appalling blogger. Something like 6 entries in the past month, way off my heyday (can a spatula have a heyday?) and my daily hit rates show it. Unfortunately work, childcare and the ongoing house hunt are all eating up most of my so-called life, with what little time left over spent watching "Doctor Who" episodes, because I do prioritize after all. But I'll attempt to keep throwing something up here as I can, long as you don't forget about this kiwi wanna-be down under...

So anyway, here's a few things I've been digging and grooving on in my Favorites #2:

FAVORITE BAND TO LISTEN TO AT 5:45 a.m.: After I switched to my early-morning shift, I realized that say, Nick Drake wasn't really what one wanted to listen to at the crack of dawn on the 20-minute drive to work. Instead, I've found the lounder and harder the better, and for some reason, the Foo Fighters have been fitting the bill lately for me. Not terribly deep, really, but Dave Grohl and co. can certainly thrash with the best of 'em. If I had any hair left I'd be head-banging through the streets of Auckland at dawn.

FAVORITE BLOG SERIES: Hey, it's almost Halloween, which I tend to forget about now that I'm too old to trick-or-treat, but my old pal and comics writer Will "Violentman" Pfeifer has been doing a swell series, a Horror Movie Marathon that has been terrific fanboy film writing. Besides the obvious picks like "Bride of Frankenstein" and John Carpenter's "The Thing," Will's been throwing all kinds of cool obscuro stuff into his movie essays (Seriously, "Sh! The Octopus"?). He even riffed on a truly awful forgotten horror movie I saw around age 12, "Dracula Vs. Frankenstein." It's been a real treat to read these witty, trivia-filled pieces and there's still nearly half the month to go!

FAVORITE TV ON DVD: We just powered through the Season 3 DVD set of the American "The Office," and this sitcom just continues to be a satirical delight. Like most I was leery when I heard of plans to "Americanize" the UK show, but if anything, I find the American version outshines the original now – it's cuddlier, true, and less bleak and cynical, but that also makes the characters a little more sympathetic. (Steve Carell's deeply flawed but essentially caring Michael Scott is a lot more admirable than Ricky Gervais' more sinister boss.) There's despair here, but it's done in a less grim fashion. It's the supporting characters that make this series so strong – from office sad sack Toby to weirdo Creed to layabout Stanley, they've all evolved from bit players into rounded, hilarious characters. Ed Helms was a marvelous addition in season 3, also. But what a drag it is that TV New Zealand isn't airing the American "Office" anywhere near the U.S. schedule (they just started season 2, while season 4 is underway in the U.S. – and they're airing at 10:30 at night or somesuch. Hence us buying the DVDs). (And don't even get me started about TVNZ starting to air the very funny US sitcom "30 Rock" -- and then pulling it off the air after only 4 weeks. Bastards!!) If you come to New Zealand, don't come for the TV.