It's The Summer of Sando!

Transcribing my life: New Zealand - Hong Kong

2010-12-13T15:00:00.003+08:00

The girlfriend and I decided to move countries for a bit so as to experience life in a place that isn't a small island. As such, we decided to move to Taiwan.

On the connecting trip (Air NZ) from Wellington to Auckland every single flight attendant with the notable exception of "Steven" was a woman named Jo, Joe, Joanna or Jody. The man sitting next to me called one of them Judy, and she just accepted it. I should have tried "Jo Jo" or "Julian" just to see what would happen.

It's very easy to like Hong Kong as it is much like a happy Blade Runner complete with Indians determined to get a replicant Rolex on my arm. Sadly, I think wrist watches are to close to shackles for my liking. Poor Blade Runner Indians, I am far too neurotic for your games.

The Chunking Mansions are a multicultural experience like no other, as the mansion (a giant decaying building) is located in the heart of Kowloon, where rent is "cheap" the place is filled with Indians, Africans, Asians, Polynesians, Europeans and I think I might have encountered a Smurf there too. It's the perfect place to drop your bags and leave to explore, especially as the rooms are the size of a double bed, so there is no incentive to stay in your hutch longer than you have to.

If you are a scenester or fancy yourself a bohemian, do go, you'll get a novel's worth of material from a three day stay.

Honestly though, it's a back packers lifestyle for a hoteliers budget: the $84NZD a night room in Chiunking Mansions was a closet with a bathroom. Awesomely this tinyness meant that our air conditioner could make the room drop from Hong Kong's 36 degree heat to Wellingtons 16 degrees in a matter of minutes. And by that, I mean Tara was wearing a jersey for an hour before she realised she could turn the airconditioning up.

Tara caught a flu on the plane ride over, so spent a lot of time feeling sorry for herself. I'd like to say that she is got better in time to explore the city, but that would be a lie and liars go to prison, assuming that they are lying under oath, which would be committing perjury. I had to go off to find some sort of cough syrup for her, but as I I couldn't read some of the labels or speak the language I just pray that she didn't injest too much horse uterus, or what ever these funny asian people use for syrup there. (It turned out to be robitussen, but with Chinese characters also. Who knew?!)

Handle the Jandle

2010-12-08T15:01:00.000+08:00

Ned Wenlock got Bevin Linkhorn and I to voice act this title sequence for the Handle the Jandle NZ DIY Music Video Awards last year. You should check out Ned's comix, as they are very cool looking. Here's a fine example that he did for Werewolf.

So, it's not the best way to toast bread

2010-12-07T23:18:00.003+08:00

I've moved to Taipei, that's a big city in Taiwan. It's so big that the entire population of New Zealand could live there. Not that they'd want to, what with everything that New Zealand can offer you, like flightless birds, an apathetic government, and sheep.

I currently love it here, but my apartment doesn't have a kitchen, so I've had to create a work around or six. Here's one that I'm fairly proud of:

Toasting bread with an electric hot plate

To do this at home all you need is an electric hot plate, chop sticks and bread rolls. The trick is to use an electric hot plate that may be using plutonium, thorium or pink kryptonite to power itself. That glow is not healthy looking, you dig?

Jam the chop stick into the bread roll and slowly rotate them over the heat. You may smell burning, but that's just your arm hair being reduced to a sticky black tar like substance.

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this, it took forever and I kept almost resting my hand on the near molten glass top of the thing. I'm a winner!

Sad Daniel 3: The Saddest of Daniels

2010-12-06T18:38:00.001+08:00

I think this is the end of that series.

I believe Tamsin took the photograph in Paekakariki with some sort of Canon DSLR. It appears to have also been taken in what I'd term "greyscale" or "black and white.

Sad Daniel 2: a sadder Daniel

2010-12-06T18:34:00.001+08:00

I made quite a few, good for me right?!

Sad Daniel

2010-12-06T18:32:00.002+08:00

My friend Tamsin took a photo of her fiancée Daniel Speight. It made him look rather too Byronic for my liking, so I started writing on it. Fun fact: The retaining wall was built to stop coastal erosion. It's failing at its job.

The internet! Part Another

2010-12-05T20:53:00.003+08:00

I remixed this panel of a public domain comic Dylan Horrocks made for the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Much love two both him and the organisation.

The internet! Part One

2010-12-05T15:53:00.009+08:00

I remixed this panel of a public domain comic Dylan Horrocks made for the Creative Freedom Foundation.
Much love two both him and the organisation.

Daily Dinosaur Comics

2007-12-06T17:21:00.000+08:00

Go and read this excellent Ryan North comic about the standing up comedy. Then laugh, then repeat.
Yeah, I know I was there the first time I did any stand up.Eagerly looking at any of my friends, hoping that they'd have a near fatal accident or something bizarre enough that we could all have a good old laugh and cry. And, all that happened was my friend Sean hung himself. Great month that was. I fucking slayed with those jokes.

How does...

2007-12-03T06:28:00.001+08:00

Today I am working on my New Zealand International Comedy Festival 2008 pitch, it's been quite hard to find any information on the festival this year. Bizarre, I know.

How does "The Luncheon Society presents The Hour and a bit Variety Hour" Sound?

An Interuption B

2007-11-25T18:07:00.000+08:00

Tonight I was stressed out and headachey. I decided to take that Panadol Extra stuff, you know, lots of paracetamol with added caffeine? Well, it turns out I am a caffeine pussy. The Effects of the equivalent of 3 cups of coffee were enough to make me go from stressed to paranoid and willing to murder any teens who happened to walk drunkenly out of my flat mates bed room. It's ok, it's not statutory rape, because my flat mates an 18 year old female. So I decided to go for a 45 minute joggle... you know, the cross between a jog and a waddle? Next time I think I'll take something a little gentler on the body like cattle drench or codeine.

An interuption

2007-11-25T17:57:00.000+08:00

This is an image I drew in 2006. I like the way I made the world look, though feel slightly bad that I made something similar to the Perry Bible Fellowship.

All Those Stand Up Secrets pt 1

2007-11-24T14:07:00.000+08:00

Last week, at Kitty O'Shea's I did my first stand up since my surgery. It was a great night for me, I did a high energy high concept tight five (that's five minutes of material give or take a min for the audiences laughs to hopefully come.) based around some physical theatre stuff and that obnoxious Air New Zealand flying ad's music. You know? The one with the sad Maori lady singing? And the guy who decided to go fishing in his totally expensive Huffer shirt? It's ok, Huffer stuff is designed to look worn right from the shop, so, he probably hadn't been fishing so much as doing the accounts down by the 'scenic wharf'(tm)

Anyways, I realised a couple of cool things while there, and in a conversation with a couple of the other comics, got told another that should have just been common sense.

Today, the common sense thing:

When you tape your stuff, get someone to tape it from the middle, or even the back if you can. That way you can see just what was going on from a place where your voice isn't as loud, and you can hear how many people were actually laughing, as opposed to what ever you heard on stage, ( an almost braying Canadian dude and his bewildered french girlfriend, who liked my box, in my case.)

GtG p33ps {<--- Check it out, I'm a teen from 1998,) My girlfriends making me go to the hospital for some sort of Nana thing.

FAQ

2006-06-30T10:53:00.001+08:00

Name: Nic The Sando
Occupation: English teacher, actor, baritone, firebreather, stand up

Info: "One time the easter bunny touched my eggs." - Actual quote

the.sando@gmail.crom