This is half-pie.

Stand back!

• I’m still chuckling: DMX’s viciously homophobic ranting is somewhat undercut by Herb Alpert’s rather jaunty Tijuana Brass in this week’s most amusing mash-up (it’s hiding on the Hotstop website – check out the Mashculture Mash page for this and zillions of other fresh tracks).
• I find that daughter number two hammering on the toilet door demanding that “you do your wees now, Dad!”, is somehow not conducive to action. Funny that – but revenge for all those times we ask her to “just try before we go out”.
• Becky surprised me on Friday with dinner at Maria Pia’s. How I wish they had a website I could point to: simply the best Italian food I’ve had in a very very long time. I think we’ll have to get the book. Go there, if you can.
• And Becky got me something aluminium too.
• I bought her a book of poems: some Brian Turner in fact. Not always the most romantic in content (although books of poetry in general score well on the Valentinometer), but a crafter of verse that makes me feel homesick for the open country of the South Island. So matter of fact, and yet poetical. How does he do that?
• Oh, nearly forgot: Becky loved it, too. Raise a glass to Brian in Oturehua, folks. Man’s a genius.
• In Wellington I didn’t realise how insulated from car culture we are: until we tried walking around the Porirua Megacentre (a business park of big-box retail about 15km from Central Wellington). The footpaths don’t connect, there are few pedestrian crossings… but in attempting to make a doomed walk from the Megacentre to Bunnings Warehouse on the hill we accidentally discovered Pataka. And their café. Brilliant! Bring on those Ann Robinson flax pods!
• Whilst being Mall Rats I bought a Madness compilation for the girls. I had observed some manic behaviour among them when playing a Madness mash-up containing Baggy Trousers (from Irn Mnky, who may be found here – hat-tip to Strawp.net’s Gybo Tracker for putting me on to it), and sure enough, the rest of the album also causes extremes of movement. Yes, two-year-olds can pogo. Now, if I want to get them to do some tidying, I put on what Rosa calls “the jumping music” and we can remove all toys and other crap from the living room floor in about two minutes. It’s wonderful. Raise a glass to Suggs and crew, still well useful after all these years!
• Back in town, I did not buy the new Beth Orton today, thought I would really have liked to. It was contaminated. But not to worry – I’m currently downloading Portishead Remixed instead. I already own the original Portishead album (see the skip photo for evidence). And who can argue with that?
• And how new is this cool Google feature: aggregated review link pages for artists: just search for one and look for the top link. I like how they put in new features like that. Things just turn up when you need them.

Jeez, what a long and meandering post. Tonight’s the first night in over a week that I haven’t brought my work laptop home, which explains the lack of output lately, and therefore this current purge.

I feel a lot better now.