On Top of the Southern World

At 328 meters in height, the Auckland Sky Tower is the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere. Impressive, eh? And for the princely sum of NZ$25 you can experience the dizzying view. Truth be told, you are only allowed to go to 220 meters where the Skydeck Viewing Platform is located. Before you get there, you start on the Main Observation Deck that is a piddling 186 meters and then pay the extra $3 to get to the top.

One of the fun things to do is to stand in the middle of one of the glass panels situated in the floor of the observation deck and look down. It's a little weird to feel like you're hovering in the air above the ground, but it does make you a little nervous. Looking out at Auckland and to the horizon through 360 degrees is impressive, but not as scary as looking straight down. The picture below is the view you get on a panel.

I was able to take a picture of Mount Eden, where I had been the previous night looking in exactly the opposite direction. There were glorious views of the bay, the Harbour Bridge, and even one of Auckland's youngest volcanoes, Rangitoto. I was also to experience the obligatory "Cappuccinos-around-the-world" from the Sky Lounge Cafe. Sure, the chicken sandwich was a little dry and not as think as a hungry man might prefer, but on a sunny day at 182m, the lounge is still an experience to be had.
Meanwhile, back in Second Life, imagine my surprise to discover that my oldest friend - as in "friend I have know the longest" not "friend who is fast approaching senility" - is going to be partnering up! If someone had been holding the proverbial feather, I could quite easily have been knocked over. I knew that Merry Felwitch and Cap Carver had been friends for some weeks now but I had absolutely zero clue that things were that serious. So I now have to go shopping for a new suit for a wedding - and presumably Cap will be thinking about doing the same thing. My guess is that Styles of Edo will be my first stop. They do some great men's tuxedos. At the same time, I suggested Merry go visit Simone! for the wedding dress.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll get to see Mony Markova in a pair of shoes. Well, I can dream, I suppose.

A Bridge and a Mountain

Before hitting the Shahi Indian Restaurant in Milford, where I polished of a mix of vegetable samosas, seekh kebabs, chicken tikka masala, soft garlic naan bread, washed down by Kingfisher beer, my hosts took me across the Harbour Bridge to see the city as the sun went down. Down by The Wharf, a place that is currently being renovated and seems to be a location for special functions like weddings, graduation parties, and the funeral of a very rich relative, there is a jetty from where it's possible to see the downtown metropolis under the span of the bridge.

Then we took a narrow, winding road to the top of Mount Eden, an extinct volcano that overlooks Auckland and offers a darkened, secluded venue to folks looking for a little smooching time. Needless to say I avoid the courting couples and climbed up to the highest point in order to take some pics. Of course, not having the equipment to take perfect night shots, I was only able to get a reasonably ordinary snap of a strip of lights against a black background. But honestly, it is the city of Auckland with its iconic Sky Tower in the center.

Mezzes for the Masses

For what it's worth, today I was on full tilt as far as work went. Like Britney Spears, I was "in the zone." I know I'm there when I'm able to answer every question from the audience, when I'm speaking at around 200 words per minutes and not stammering, and when folks offer me a job. I then get an endorphin rush that helps me soar through the day, handing out my e-mail to people like candy to kids. Damn I was good.

Then 5:00 pm hits, the fans have gone, and the endorphins stop. My body slows, my brainbegins to shut down, I come over all mellow, and thoughts of ice-cold beers begin to dominate. Time for dinner.

This evenings trip was to a tapas bar just off the busy Queen Street thoroughfare, the Mezze Bar tucked discretely off an alleyway. On the specials list was the Cuba Libre - and I was in a Hemingway mood so this was a no brainer. Then my colleagues and I started stacking the table with a selection of meats and vegetables; chunks of marinated lamb; seasoned meatballs; chunky tuna; spiced potatoes; the list went on.

Funny thing about Cuba Libres is that they go down easy and don't become boring. And I certainly wasn't bored. We ate and drank enough to suggest we should take the long way home - via the dauntingly steep Auckland Domain, a piece of land in the center of the city that added around 45 minutes to our walk home.

An Englishman, An Australian, and An American...

An Englishman, an Australian, and an American walk into an Irish pub in New Zealand...

It was late by the time we'd flown from Christchurch up to Auckland and after checking in at the Airedale Hotel an excursion to a friendly watering-hole was in order. Our first attempt was with a place called the London Pub, which turned out to be unfriendly to the point of being in serious danger of losing custom. It was clearly some sort of local talent night because there was a local talent wailing with a guitar and a small group of solemn and dour individuals with pints nodding like marionettes to the strumming. Oh, and more important - there was no-one at the bar. Not on person. Zero. After 5 minutes without even so much as a nod from the zombies, we decided to move on.


God was clearly on our side because situated adjacent to the pub was Father Ted's Bar, a much friendlier place that actually wanted to serve us with drinks AND was half way through a quiz night. Needless to say, after a few pints we were dominating the quiz - except that we hadn't actually signed up so our answers counted for NOTHING! Still, the beer and Jack Daniels chasers certainly helped work up an appetite, and in high-living style, we stopped off at a local fine-dining establishment, Kebabs on Queens, for a late night snack.

Sleep was easy.

Return of the New Romantics

I am a hopeless Romantic. And please take note of the upper case "R" there. The Romantic Movement covered most of the 19th century and its children included the Pre-Raphaelites and the Neoclassicists. Of the latter, I'm afraid I have an almost erotic fixation on the paintings of John William Waterhouse. For those who have never come across his works, you could do no better than taking a trip to the premier Waterhouse site at http://www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com

While browsing the site, take a peek at Circe Invidiosa, a positive riot of turquoise centered on the image of the witch, Circe. In the Odyssey, it was Circe who held Ulysses captive (or is it captivated) for many years before he escaped to travel home to Ithaca. In this painting, Circe is in the process of transforming the beautiful nymph Scylla into a hideous sea monster. Wicked, eh?
The only problem is that Waterhouse's Circe is stunningly gorgeous. If she IS evil, then it's an evil most men would die to be the victim of. With her slightly retrousse nose and large, dark eyes, it's impossible for me to find any fault with her. She is captivating and intriguing - a dangerous and fatal duo of qualities for a woman to have, in art or in life.

In life, Waterhouse was besotted by one of his models, Muriel Foster. Some critics have argues that JW only ever had one women in his paintings - I'd suggest two. But it doesn't take a degree in Fine Art to flick through the website to see that the same woman appears over and over in Waterhouse's paintings, and if that doesn't suggest an enchantment, I don't know what does. Ooh, "enchanting," a third dangerous adjective for a member of the fairer sex.

If you want to see the actual painting, you have to travel to the Adelaide Art Museum and venture into room 15. There you can stand for 15 minutes and simply stare at it. Which I did. I also took a photo, which is (a) forbidden, and (b) got me a stern lecture from some jumped up attendant who seemed to think it was OK to allow a bunch of school kids to wander around taking pictures with their cell phones but NOT some 40-year-old adult male to take ONE with a camera. Well fuck him; I did it anyway.

Unbeknownst to me, there was a second painting at the diagonally opposite location of the room that I am similarly enchanted by. In fact, it is on the walls of my Second Life house along with the Waterhouse. This is John Collier's Priestess of Delphi, yet another image of a femme fatale who, not surprisingly, bears a resemblance to Circe. Draped in red, the priestess has her eyes closed while she dreams up her prophecy high up in the mountains in Delphi, Greece.

Two women in one day. A priestess and a witch. A dangerous day indeed.

Slaughterhouse Six: Revenge of the Carnivores

Vegetarian may want to stop reading now because the following contains descriptions of such animal carnage that this blogger accepts no responsibility for any consequences. Meat-lovers may want to start licking their lips in anticipation.

The Red-Hot Brazilian Charcoal Grill is a modest, unassuming little place on Adelaide's Gouger Street, unpretentious and basic in decor. However, for the unashamed carnivores among us, it represents a retreat from the over-hyped world of the sensitive, caring eaters and an atavistic throwback to when men were men and hoofed-animals were nervous.

For the princely sum of $32 Australian dollars, the diner can gorge on freshly grilled beef, chicken, barbecue ribs, lamb, sausage, pork, and kangaroo. Yes, kangaroo. To assuage some guilt, there is the option to add some grilled sweetcorn and salad to your plate in an effort to change its appearance from an explosion at a slaughterhouse to something resembling a food plate - but yours truly was quite happy to forgo the greenery and focus on the burnt offerings.

When you order, your server gives you a small card in the shape of a cow that's green on one side and red on the other. As long as the green cow s face up, the servers will periodically visit your table with a large skewer of some type of meat, dripping hot fat into a large metal dish. Armed only with very sharp knives, they will cut off slabs of protein as many times as you like until you flip the cow to show red.

The beef was beefy; the pork was porky; the lamb was lamby; and the kangaroo was... rooish. I have to say I wasn't over-excited by the roo on offer because it was a little chewy and had a slightly bitter after-taste. According to friends, this may just have been a by-product of how it was prepared, possibly due to a marinade and under-cooking. Nevertheless, I can now claim to have eaten "Skippy" and one more helpless animal can be stricken off my list of "things-to-eat-before-I-die."

After consuming a small herd of assorted beasts, my colleagues and I walked back to our hotel in an attempt to burn off at least some of the ingested protein and fat. We can but hope that was true.

Guzzling Garfish and Mony's Minute

Having experienced authentic Australian cuisine at Montezuma's Mexican restaurant, it was time to sample more native food - at the Amalfi Italian. Now here's a place so popular that it we had to book a table on a Tuesday night. A local favorite, the Amalfi has been serving food to the good people of Adelaide for many years and apparently the menu has stayed pretty much the same, with occasional modifications to maintain interest.

It's always good to go for local when on the road, so I opted for the garfish because (a) it is local, (b) I like fish, and (c) I had no clue what a damn garfish was! So time to try. Turns out that it looks like a really small swordfish, and is so small that you don't get "a" garfish but "some" garfish. With "fish" being both a singular and plural noun, of course, the word "garfish" on the menu doesn't tell you anything about number. I thought I was getting one, but turns out I had a school. Well, maybe not quite that many but at least six.


Before hitting the restaurant, I did manage to snag an internet connection for 30 minutes and was able to hang with Mony for a while. Seemed like I hadn't seen her for the longest time but it was actually only a few days. It's amazing how SL becomes just a part of RL and the people you know might as well be living in the same city as you. Incredible. And time moves so fast in SL that I felt we only had a minute. Maybe time dilation is a new law of Physics that only applies to Second Life. Researchers take note. Still , the minute was worth all 60 seconds.

We're Off To See The Wizard...

I appreciate the title of this blog is Sigmund Leominster on Second Life, and that what follows is not about Second Life, but you should also remember that this is MY blog and I'm free to do what I want with it. You're therefore free to stop reading now and hop back in-world until maybe 15th April 2008 when I'm pretty much sure to be back on track with all-Second Life all-the-time. Until then, you're going to find references to SL oblique rather than directly experiential.

That's because Siggy is on the road in the land of Oz and the Apple Island, which is, as I have now discovered, one of the Australian nicknames for New Zealand. And while I'm working hard (honest) in the antipodes, accessing SL may be more limited.


I'll be tossing in some pictures of the trip for the curious, none of which will actually include the Man Behind the Puppet; after all, this is "Sigmund Leominster's" site and not... well, whatever, his name is. Of course, a smart detective type willing to spend time and money might gather enough clues to work out who I really am, but honestly, it's not worth it. I am neither rich nor famous in RL so don't waste your time.

So here's clue number one; and aerial shot of the approach to Sydney with the iconic Opera House front and center. It's a little blurry on the left because your intrepid traveler (Sir Sigmund of Leominster, Vampire Hunter) was stuffed real close to the wing and so the heat from the engine was warping the air. Now you can work out where I was sitting and then check the passenger manifest of all flights to Sydney on that day. Good luck!