Kiwiburgers are back!

This week's post is going to be concise, but fun! In the interest of saving me heaps of typing, and because things are pretty full-on (kiwispeak for intense) this week, there are going to be lots of hyperlinks in this post. They are there for you, so use 'em people!

The Kiwiburger is back! As I speak these words, I am reminded of an episode of the Osbournes where Jack sees a McDonald's billboard and gleefully exlaims, "The McRib is back!" His sister Kelly proceeded to commit verbal abuse on him for being excited about processed meat-food packed loosely into the shape of a rib cage. I am not certain that New Zealanders are as excited about the return of the Kiwiburger. This is even with McDonald's attempt at convincing them via a happy little song where their product is listed among the things that "Kiwis love". For you guys back home, the Kiwiburger's ingredients list might give you pause...it's a burger, yes, but it also features an egg patty and beets. It may look like the McDonald's you are used to, but the menu has several unusual twists when you look closely. Sweet Chilli Chicken, for instance... I don't remember that one.

When I took the photos (above) of the McDonald's, I was suddenly accosted by the store manager who wanted to know what I was doing and if I had permission to take photos. I declared my harmless intentions, and offered to delete the photos if it was such a huge problem. To his credit, he calmed down and said it was OK, then explained that the reason he was so quick to react was that there had been tons of press taking unauthorised photos of the restaurant in recent days. Unknown to me, this was the McDonald's that unwittingly gave away a condom in a happy meal, making headlines recently in New Zealand.

The photos above are of the St. James Theatre, and the Jimmy Cafe which is inside and where Stacey works. You can just barely make her out in the photo top right--unfortunately it came out kinda blurry. Last Saturday, a group of friends met up at the Jimmy for breakfast (which was quite good). It was a really nice morning. Stacey was working, so she could only come over periodically (it did not help that one of her co-workers called in sick) but she did make the coffees for us and they were top notch! For those of you who have been following her Barista training, she's gotten pretty good at running the espresso machine, and quite fast. You have to be really fast to keep up with all the drink orders.

I mentioned the week is full-on, and here's why. In addition to all the usual work stuff, and some freelance work that I have picked up, we are are going to be participating in the 48 Hour Film Project. Check out the link, it explains all about the event. The gist of it is that we have 48 hours to produce a film from scratch. To keep people from pre-planning too much, the genres are drawn randomly. We could get anything from a Horror film to a Musical! We're pretty excited about our team. We've got at least a couple WETA Workshop peeps with us who have done this before, so that is brilliant. We fully expect it to be a roller-coaster ride of a weekend with no sleep in the forecast. I will post early next week and let you know if we survived (and just how our film came out!)