Happy new millennium, folks. It's nearly one in the morning here and the
Earth has in fact survived intact. (Unless New Zealand has been preserved by
rugby-loving aliens inside a gigantic space-sphere while the rest of the
world has gone kablooey.) The power's all working, the water's all working,
the phone lines are obvious all working and all in all nothing really
happened.

I started the new year in what way was left to me. Most of my friends and
social groups have left during the last month or so so I was kinda stuck for
what to do. Normally I'd go to the beach with some friends, or go downtown
with some friends, or stand around pretending to drink with some friends.
You know, the usual. Well I didn't really have anyone left to do that with
:o( so I had to come up with something else to do. At something after eleven
I ended up, depressingly enough, at the KAOS millennium party.

For those of you who I haven't discussed this with, KAOS are an odd group of
people. It's a huge, country-spanning social group comprising of goths,
geeks and other social misfits, who all gather together to listen to gothic
music, talk about things they consider cool, summon Cthuloid monstrosities,
the usual drill. As an example, earlier today the Paramilitaries attempted
to stop the Reformed Church of Cthulhu from summoning the Millennium Bug,
which would rise from the deep to devour The Beehive (the NZ centre of
politics). I think it all ended with the Thing eating *both* groups and
therefore being declared the winner, but that's beside the point. So yes, an
amusing group but when they're not doing such sillinesses they're a
depressing bunch of goths to be around, Marilyn Manson impersonations and
all.

Well after seeing in the new millennium in relative boredom at the KAOS
party I drove into the middle of town and timed it so that my car was stuck
at the traffic lights as the waves and waves of people all left Hagley Park.
Given the amount of people that were in the square well over a hundred
thousand people may well have swept passed my car, making jokes about "You'd
be better off walking!" as they went by, before the crowd was sparse enough
for me to consider moving. In it's own way it seemed rather celebratory, and
I would probably have been better off in the park with complete strangers
than at the KAOS party surrounded by about a hundred people who were being
very boring.

The Millennium has been something of a non-event in New Zealand. Here it is,
the first country going over the dateline into the new millennium, this
could have been the event to get New Zealand on the world map. So what did
they actually do? Bugger all, when you get right down to it. And to top it
off the weather decided to do its bit for the New Zealand apathy towards the
whole thing by providing rain a plenty. Noone will be able to see the first
sunrise of the new millennium. Cheers, weather.

Well tomorrow I meet with my folks to celebrate the new millennium turnover
in _real_ countries, namely at ten o'clock tomorrow morning for Saudi Arabia
and then again at one in the afternoon for England. Who knows, I might even
consider drinking. Regardless my thoughts now turn to returning to England,
so I'm trying to get hold of a Kiwi passport (multiple nationalities come in
handy) and getting a couple of teeth fixed (while I can still get my father
to pay for it  :o). Aside from that just decisions on what to take and what
to leave, as since I moved in to this flat in March my number of belongings
has pretty much quadrupled.

I'll stop rambling as my flatmates have returned and we have established, in
their bad English and my bad Mandarin, that we might as well salvage what
remains of the millennial party spirit by living it up in what way we can
(which, after a suitible amount of time, normally results in me teaching
them more English, *sigh*) and maybe attempt to wake the housekeepers with
my new 'S & M' ('Symphony & Metallica') album.

OK everyone, catchya 'round,

Sam the man