It's raining in Auckland...

It is raining in Auckland and I have no desire to leave my hotel room other than to find something to eat. Last night I drove for a (very) short period to see how far away the Vector Arena was, but didn’t find it and came back screwing up the right of way at the bottom of Gladstone Rd. meeting with The Strand. I decided that I wasn’t going to do any further driving in Auckland. But it is raining. And I’m not keen on catching a bus. The hotel does have meals, but I would be concerned about the cost, though at least I could say it would be a healthy alternative.
      It’s 12:13 p.m.
      I’m getting hungry.
      I’m going to risk it. At least, I can say, it’ll be an adventure. But probably not a very happy one.
      Just a few more words first:
      My room is a lie. Advertised with “a garden view,” it merely looks across the meagre shrubbery beside the footpath alongside Gladstone Rd. Cars consistently pass by leaving no room for any kind of tranquillity that “a garden view” could infer or conjure in a person’s mind. The window view gives no sense of place, only presenting a thinly wood panelled fence that shows a blue car parked on the road beyond it and the tail or front end of cars surrounding it; everything else is blocked by a couple of trees to my right.

      It rains in Auckland like you are meant to feel it.

      After looking at my meal list on the hotel room menus, I decided on the $18 Steak and Chips. ‘That sounds like a decent price’ for a meaty meal, I thought to myself. But when I got up to the restaurant, I ordered an orange juice and room service at an extra $3 because I couldn’t eat it up there due to a private event and wasn’t prepared to carry it back to my room after having to wait for it. So the total cost came to $25, and my regret kicked in with thoughts of ‘fuck, I really should have braved the weather and searched foe something with a less brutal cost attached to it’ (or something similar). Not that I think $25 is brutal, but compared to what I could have paid, it’s definitely more than what I wanted to pay. When I thought about it at the Copthorne Hotel last month, I was just happy to be paying for a meal that was ultimately healthier, and that’s something I’m now willing to pay for.
      Maybe at the end of the day I will be far more thankful that I didn’t bother trying to rape my soul by competing with car traffic, people traffic and the all consuming rain.

      Yay! My meal arrived.
      See, and in no way can I say that that meal wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t huge, true; and it wasn’t the most beautiful taste I had tasted either, but then I didn’t expect it to be; there’s no doubt I could have paid for the same meal slightly cheaper, but at what outside cost? And therein lies the rub. By not venturing out into the wet downpours (opposed, my semantically inclined critic, to the dry downpours of sunshine) I avoided battling with multitudes of bodies plagued by fashion and trends, muggy indoor temperatures, car parking costs, car driving costs, and all other temperament upsetting inducements that only Auckland can curse me with.
      In those moments I feel like an RPG character who has been cursed and has to wait a period of time for the curse to wear off or, alternatively, seek help from a mage or harvest some weird plant that grows in an out of the way territory and is surrounded by trolls or giants who protect the area because it is sacred to them and supplies them with special life enhancing properties but they need to be fought and battled against in order to even reach the area with the special curse-curing plants. I’d rather just let it wear off as I cross the Bombay Hills tomorrow.
      At least I have some tasty orange juice to see me through until that time.

    
Tool Setlist:

1. Third Eye
   
2. Vicarious
   
3. Pushit
   
4. Schism
   
5. Lateralus
   

(Intermission)

1. Drum Solo
   
2. Jambi
   
3. Intension
   
4. Stinkfist
   
5. Forty Six & 2
   

I’m not sure which was last – Stinkfist or Forty Six & 2. And I’m also not sure where Schism comes in in the whole setlist after Pushit. I know the first three are correct, and Lateralus was last before the intermission, and then the drum solo.