Tech Talk with Travis

Hello little kiddies and welcome to tech talk with me your host Travis. Today we are going to talk about neo-liberalism and the wide spread damage it has done to the non-billionaires of the world. Particularly we will look at its negative effect on the average citizen in New Zealand. New Zealand is a socialist democracy so people here generally get a good deal, universal healthcare, secure employment, state supplied euphoric happiness, stuff like this. However this country seems to have missed the whole freedom of information act memo. Uncharacteristically of most other industries in New Zealand the Internet seems to be tightly strangled by private market forces (perhaps private is redundant, like saying violet war forces, ahem, anyway). All Internet traffic is sold in megabytes. Quite simply more money equals more megabytes per month of downloading and uploading. As you know in American it’s an on or off service. You call Comcast, they turn on the tap and suddenly the entire World Wide Web could be brought down to your computer, Comcast could give a shit less how much you use the internet as long as you pay up every month. Additionally compounding the problem in New Zealand (and perhaps there is a conservation necessity I am unaware of here) the country runs on DSL (phone lines) and satellites, no cable wires or fiber optics in the infrastructure yet. So they partition the speeds 80 (download)/20 (upload) on the total bandwidth of the puny little line. All this adds up making it at times impossible to upload stuff onto the blog. For the last two days I have tried to upload a measly 9mb vid to the blog to no avail. So here, for once it appears that America on this one issue is freer. Hooray America you're all totally free and shit! I knew things would be better with you Obama!

Sand Boarding

Here is a belated look at more of our trip from the North Island. At the very tip of the North Island, the lush jungle of the sub tropical climate gives way to a Tatooine-esq landscape of rolling dry sandy hills. Ocean, desert, and jungle all converge on this site. Such beauty demands that we immediately rent something to start fucking it all up!


P.S. The track is from a New Zealand band called Split Enz.

Contact

View Larger Map

We found a home! After an arduous search across town, in which we looked at several dirty and depressing rooms in shared houses, Travis and I broke down and popped for our own furnished one bedroom. We really scored with the location and the 1920s building (though we were heavily warned against older buildings which lack insulation--a must for normal people in this snowy city). But my dedication to pretty things prevailed. Anyway, we have a fire place and two electric heaters. Plus, there is a mini second bedroom with which you will comfortably stay in when you come to visit. Hopefully, we can get a virtual tour posted sometime soon. Also, we have a ton of footage from the North Island and the northern part of the South Island (including a two-day sea kayaking trip) that needs to be compiled. Perhaps I will lock Travis in the closet with nothing but a single sock, his editing equipment, and three rice-crackers and see what that does to the vlog turnover rate.

Map Update

This is a very quick summary of our trip so far as it appears on the map. The features that correlate to this charted course will appear the next time we have the internet. Enjoy and Happy Obama Day!

Happy Day

Asheley Says "Hello From Brooklyn"

Police Cars Here Are Silly

Trendsetters

Apparently Brangalina is copying us, just as they did when they accumulated/birthed six children.

Here is a tiny look at a moment of our trip in the North Island. 90 mile beach is a strip of beach that vehicles are allowed to drive on during low tide. Most of the drive we were serenaded by John Lennon and David Bowie. It was great.

Our First Week

Happy New Year. We have nearly finished up our first week here in New Zealand. It's been absolutely wonderful. Joanne organized several days at Flaxmill Bay on the Coromandle Peninsula. This is where we stayed for New Years two years ago and it was great meeting up with all our Kiwi friends again. Isaac, the startlingly like-minded 13 year old, stars in our film and gives an informative perspective on the land, people and creatures of New Zealand. We did quite a few things while at Flaxmill, most of which are discussed in the video. Yesterday we took off to Northland (Travis and I driving around in our hot new Toyota Carib '97) to stay with Jo's brother, Neil and tonight we'll stay with her other brother Colin. It is incredibly beautiful in this subtropical area. Will extend further communications soon.