At sea heading west en
route to Wellington, New Zealand. Cold and wet and we are regretting that we
packed for French Polynesia and not the colder spots that would follow.
Woke up feeling under the weather. Had a couple of cups
of coffee in room while getting ready for "Xena, Hercules, and the Lord of
the Rings," my presentation on the New Zealand Fantasy film industry. Some
sort of tour of the theater was still going on when my presentation was
scheduled to start at 11:15 and I went on about 15 minutes late. Had also been
announced and listed in the daily newsletter as being about Wellington, so I
clarified before beginning for benefit of anyone who was there for shopping
tips or the like; some left after this sank in but we still had good turnout
and response.
Lunch in Windjammer; absolutely packed and nothing was
made easier by rough seas, me being dizzy, or the significant minority of
passengers who cut in line, stood in common areas eating their food instead of
going to tables, etc.
Attended John Robson's lecture on "Tasman and the
Dutch Explorers in the Pacific." Learned some interesting things,
especially re. how powerful and oppressive the Dutch East India Company (VOC)
were in the 17th and 18th centuries, and how the Dutch named many places
throughout the Pacific that the subsequently exerted no interest in (e.g., New
Holland/Australia, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania).
At 16:30 met Kevin and J3 Furness and fellow
lecturer John Robson for Progressive Trivia, Part 2, in the Colony Club. Scored
32 points, coming in behind the lead team with 33, out of about 20 teams
playing! Categories for one part were "Where would you find it"
(geography), which we had selected for our double point scoring, and "Spelling
Bee"; we got ALL of the geography questions correct and eight of the
spelling ones for 22 points, plus 10 of the 12 art ones (and we second guessed
ourselves on the two we got wrong; as Diane said, "we were smarter than we
gave ourselves credit for"). John had brilliant and correct answers to a
number of questions we would not otherwise have gotten and Kevin and I dubbed
him our "secret weapon"; I proposed calling him "V-2" and
Kevin suggested "Exocet," which was better, so we went with that. Drank
a dirty vodka martini during the game (no one else had anything).
Had drinks afterward w. Kevin and J3; Pernod
for me, and I told story of my first experience w. Absinthe, and we all
followed w. interesting drinking and/or prescription drug anecdotes. Broke to
change for dinner and then met up at Cascades c. 7:25 to eat.
Tried to finish reading The Bounty but passed out w. four pages to go.
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