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Cut me some slack; I’m buzzed and I can’t come up with any good puns. We drove most of the day, in cold rain, to get from Rotorua to Wellington. The terrain’s absolutely gorgeous. Can’t wait to share some pix with you, via one of my wacky slideshows (the captions will likely be as dumb as this entry’s header).

Tomorrow’s off to Nelson, on the South Island, via a lengthy ferry ride. The day after’s a lengthy hike in the Abel Tasman reserve.

Speaking of Tasman, I just found a first edition (Australian) hardcover of Richard Flanagan’s great novel, Gould’s Book of Fish. Happy Hanukkah, Gil!

I’m such a geek…

(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)

I’m currently in Rotorua, which is filled with geothermal vents. Because of this, the air is permeated with sulfur. It’s the stinkiest place I’ve ever been, besides Kearny.

(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)

Made it to New Zealand safely. It was a LONG pair of flights. I have no idea how Singapore Air plans to handle their upcoming 19-hour nonstops, unless it’s all business seating. Being in coach for this trip was pretty tough.

Dylan, Terry, Louis and Abe are making me feel quite at home. Once they go out, I’ll check out that coriolis effect.

(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)

I’m 6 hours away from starting my 15-day trip to New Zealand. Many thanks to Signature Destinations for setting up my tour. Additional thanks to Dylan Horrocks for giving me a place to stay near Auckland for my first night.

I have a ton of batteries for the iPod’s power backup. I’ve got semi-trashy airplane reading (20 hours in the air today, with 3 hours sitting in LA). I bought a 256mb SD card for the digital camera, so I’ve got capacity for about 750 pix (I promise not to put ALL of them into a slideshow).

In the words of Biz Markie, I need a haircut. Other than that, I’m pretty much ready to go.

I live a life of blessings.

Rage is better than despair.

Now that I’ve downloaded the PC version of iTunes and compiled my MP3 library, I’m really happy to learn that I have FOURTEEN DAYS’ worth of music sitting on my desktop machine.

What’s particularly frightening about that is that I have an equally large stash of music sitting on my laptop.

My buddy in Teheran, “H. Utanazad,” has a new column in The Iranian, where Shakespeare, Confucius and Socrates meet to discuss weightier matters than hay fever. Check it out.

Okay, it’s not like most of my readers care about ADME/T (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolization, Excretion, Toxicology). If it weren’t part of the purview of my magazine, I wouldn’t either. That said, this is a sorta funny article.

Back from Atlanta, the second city on the IAL tour (third, if you count Nyack, NY on 11.4), the last of my business travel for the year! I took a few too many press junkets this year (and even missed out on one to Puerto Rico in August, due to strep throat). All that remains for 2003 travel is a two-week jaunt to Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud . . .