Despite its importance, we know a staggeringly small amount about what lives beneath the waves on our tiny blue planet. We have better maps of the Moon and the surface of Mars than we do of our own sea-bed. Currently there exist only five deep-ocean submersibles capable of reaching the ‘abyssal plain’ that covers more than half of the Earth’s surface, and they each cost about $25,000 a day to operate. As a result, humans may have scrutinised ‘perhaps a millionth or a billionth of the sea’s darkness. Maybe less. Maybe much less.’

With that sobering thought in mind, we cannot begin to imagine what fantastic creatures might lie beneath the waves, awaiting discovery. For all we know, our oceans could be teeming with stranger and more wonderful beasts than anything we have yet laid eyes on. If these seven creatures are anything to go by, what lies beneath the unexplored deep must be truly mind-blowing.

MEMORANDUM FOR: Commander, Quick-Response Force, Counter-Terrorist Unit, Washington D.C. 20318-9999

SUBJECT: Operation Heart of Darkness

The following documents contain an intelligence briefing and orders for today’s CTU operations. Attachments include an intercepted message from the primary target and a map of the AO. Study all documents carefully and report back with any queries.

Intelligence

Since the election of our first black president, the rift between Northern progressives and Southern fundamentalist Christians has widened further than anyone thought remotely plausible.

The global financial crisis of 2007 left in its wake thousands of Americans without a job or means of support, while the federal government busily handed over billions of their dollars to bankers on Wall Street. In the southern Bible Belt – already an area filled with unease by the sudden changes taking place in modern American society – conservative leaders were quick to seize upon their frustration and anger. Evangelist Pat Robertson played on ordinary peoples’ fear of change and whipped fundamentalists into a frenzy of bigotry, racism and homophobia. Meanwhile, pundits Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck drew parallels between the administration and Nazi Germany, and called for all ‘real Americans’ to defend their way of life against an allegedly tyrannical government.

Grass-roots movements such as the ‘Tea Party’ began forming, protesting Obama initiatives such as health-care and energy reform. While most of these movements were peaceful and non-violent, their ranks included minority elements of militant right-wing extremists, who began arming themselves for confrontation with the perceived threat from big government and liberal elites.

In September 2011, the slowly-recovering economy took a second nose-dive shortly before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and hard-line conservatives began to look for alternative means of representation. The number of domestic terrorist attacks skyrocketed, as disenfranchised individuals unleashed their frustration on government buildings, abortion clinics and other symbols of the liberal majority.

In response, America turned to the polls, reelecting President Obama in 2012 by a slim majority. Emboldened by the win, the administration was granted sweeping new powers and a mandate to crack down on the growing civil unrest. Since the winter of 2013, military checkpoints have become a common sight in the Deep South, and right-wing figureheads such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have been imprisoned. However, the government’s reaction only validated conservative fears, and turned Beck and Palin into anti-establishment heroes. Their imprisonment initiated waves of suicide bomb attacks by religious extremists bent on a heroic martyr’s death. Beck’s prediction of ‘an Obama dictatorship’, which seemed ridiculous back in 2009, has increasingly resembled reality.

In recent months the number of concerning right-wing militias has exploded, vastly exceeding the US Secret Service’s ability to keep track of them all. As a result, the responsibility for managing threats from domestic terrorism has been spread across various federal agencies including the Federal Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), which currently maintains files on over a dozen anti-government factions.

One such element is the Trinity Legion, a militia of right-wing survivalists, anti-government activists and religious fundamentalists. Their leader is Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, a retired US Army officer who believes he has a mission from God to bring about the biblical apocalypse. He is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a background in bio-weapons, and has spent the last few years arming and training his militia in guerilla warfare. The group has kept a low profile since they were suspected in last year’s Chicago Fed Building attack, and have constructed a guerilla camp deep within the pine forests of northern Georgia.

Orders

At 0549 yesterday, CTU response teams were placed on high alert when the NSA intercepted a message purportedly from Kurtz himself (see appendix, attached), in which he orders the Legion to commence an attack.

Shortly afterwards, the main research centre at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, GA was infiltrated by at least seven well-armed and masked terrorists, who were able to steal several vials of weapons-grade virus material before detonating diversionary explosives in the guard barracks and escaping. Their objective appears to have been a highly contagious experimental virus known as THX1138, which is designed for airborne transmission using a bomb to hasten the initial release. It is still unclear exactly what effects the virus has as human trials have not yet been conducted, however it is intended to attack the cerebral cortex causing irrational rage, loss of motor function, impaired reasoning, a lessened response to pain sensation and finally death.

Intelligence indicates that the terrorists have returned to the Trinity Legion camp to weaponize the virus. If combined with a dirty bomb, it could be spread by the wind over a massive area, potentially infecting millions of people. However before the bomb can be detonated, the virus must be activated in a complex chemical process requiring several hours to complete. Our mission is to secure and destroy the virus sample before the virus can be activated and dispersed.

CTU’s quick-reaction force will be one of the first government response teams deployed to the area. Attached to the team is Agent Marlow, a biological warfare expert from USAMRIID. He is the only member of the team with the expertise necessary to identify and safely deactivate the virus bomb for transportation. However it is of vital importance that he be protected at all costs, as if he is captured by the Legion then they might be able to greatly accelerate the virus activation process with his forced cooperation.

One more thing: remember to check your fire when storming the Trinity Legion camp. Intelligence indicates that there may be unarmed civilians in the compound, including women and children. The last thing this government needs is another Waco siege on our hands, so you are to proceed with caution.

Your transport to the AO is via UH-60s courtesy of the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, who will be able to drop your team less than a klick from the target. Jump-off time is 0900, and ETA at the LZ is 0930. Once you have identified and captured the package, your orders are to withdraw to a safe LZ for extraction. Further information will be provided over the radio as the situation develops. Good luck.

Fresleven N. Manager
General, US Army
Commander

MESSAGE INTERCEPT: 0549 : 12-2-15

AUTHOR: Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, US Army (ret)

Message Contents:

Today, we fire the opening shots of the second American Civil War. Obama’s illegitimate administration of socialist Nazis has pushed us far enough. It is time to bring down the out-of-control government. It is time to strike a blow for the real America. It is time for some second-amendment remedies.

You have your orders, and you’ve trained for this. I am proud of every one of you, and I know that God smiles upon our efforts, and will reward us on the other side.

Lock and load.

Colonel W. E. Kurtz
US Army

‘Prime Minister John Key told reporters that an agreement with the ACT Party had been reached and the policy would be incorporated in to legislation due in parliament in March…

Mr Key today said the altered policy would incorporate “significant aspects of ACT’s three strikes policy.” An offender would receive a standard sentence and warning for their first serious offence. The second offence would usually lead to a jail term with no parole and a further warning. On conviction for a third serious offence, the offender would receive the maximum penalty in prison for that offence with no parole.’

Imposing harsher sentences for violent crimes (or ‘sensible sentencing’, as its proponents call it) has long been one of the ACT party’s key policies. Their argument appears to be that harsher prison sentences will act as a deterrent to potential criminals, thus reducing the crime rate. It sounds like good common sense: the worse the anticipated punishment for an action is, the lower the likelihood that a rational agent will pursue that action.

The only problem is that it doesn’t resemble reality. For decades, study after study has shown that harsher sentencing has if anything an adverse effect upon recidivism rates, and precious little deterrent effect. For instance, an investigation by Chen & Shapiro (2004) shows that ‘harsher prison conditions cause higher rates of post-release criminal behavior, behavior which is also measurably more violent.’ (Click here for a summary of their findings)

However, one cherry-picked article is hardly convincing on its own. Much better evidence is a report commissioned by the Department of the Solicitor General Canada compiling ‘fifty studies dating from 1958 involving 336,052 offenders and producing 325 correlations between recidivism and (a) length of time in prison and recidivism or (b) serving a prison sentence vs. receiving a community-based sanction’.

The report found that:

‘Under both of the above conditions, prison produced slight increases in recidivism. Secondly, there was some tendency for lower risk offenders to be more negatively affected by the prison experience.

The essential conclusions reached from this study were:

1. Prisons should not be used with the expectation of reducing criminal behaviour.

2. On the basis of the present results, excessive use of incarceration has enormous cost implications.

3. In order to determine who is being adversely affected by prison, it is incumbent upon prison officials to implement repeated, comprehensive assessments of offenders’ attitudes, values, and behaviours while incarcerated.

4. The primary justification of prison should be to incapacitate offenders (particularly, those of a chronic, higher risk nature) for reasonable periods and to exact retribution.’

Moving closer to home, these opinions are shared by our Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias. In October last year, Dame Elias gave a controversial Shirley Smith address on the current state of criminal justice in New Zealand. Journalist Colin Espiner called the speech ‘the most insightful and damning summary of justice policy in this country since the Roper Report’ but ‘political suicide’, and predicted her imminent disappearance from the top job for opposing the judicial policies of both major political parties. Dame Elias’ address outlined the considerable shifts in New Zealand’s attitude towards tackling crime during her forty years of involvement in criminal justice, and how increasingly punitive sanctions against offenders and more victim-focused judiciaries have not made our communities any safer. Rather than summarise her arguments further here, if you’ve got the time I recommend reading the speech itself.

The three strikes law is intended to dissuade convicts from re-offending by making the prospect of future imprisonment less appealing. If such policies work then we ought to observe an inverse correlation between sentence lengths and crime rates. However as the above reports make clear, this is not the case – in fact the inverse appears true. As Lord Bingham pointed out in 2000, ‘the problem with incarceration is that in all but a small number of cases at some point the offender must re-enter society.’ In practice, prisons tend to function as ‘monster-factories’, by locking up society’s most aggressive and at-risk individuals in a place where they will reinforce each other’s behaviour and teach each other more effective ways of breaking the law. The result is that offenders are usually more dangerous when they come out than when they went in.

The United States was the first place to enact three strikes laws, and hence they represent the best opportunity to study its success. Undoubtedly the state with the harshest three strikes law, California implemented a system in 1994 which usually requires a sentence of 25 years to life for a third offence. According to Wikipedia, ‘early studies of three strikes laws found negligible impacts on overall recidivism rates amongst the general population’, although the Wikipedia page does acknowledge room for error in the cited statistic. Furthermore, ‘incidence of murder, rape, and aggravated assault has risen from 2002 to 2008′ in California. Givcn that this information is now widely available, the government’s decision to implement similar laws in New Zealand must either be due to ignorance about their lack of effectiveness, or else a cynically populist move to satisfy a woefully misinformed voter base.

One of the most significant problems with the ‘sensible sentencing’ model for reducing crime is that violent offenders are not rational agents. The typical offender is male, often of low intelligence and poor education, has a family history of ineffectual parenting and often emotional, physical or sexual abuse, and comes from a background of poverty, poor housing, instability, association with delinquent peers and unemployment. Given what we know about the psychology of violent offenders, it is unreasonable to expect the average convict to make the kinds of rational decisions that a theorist might expect.

This strong correlation between a person’s background and their likelihood of  criminality has controversial implications: If the circumstances surrounding a individual’s birth largely determine whether they will become a criminal, then it is unfair to punish them for something that is largely outside of their control. Better to fix the underlying cause of their behaviour instead of punishing them for exhibiting symptoms of deeper societal illness.

‘As a society we create our criminals; we, as a whole, are responsible.’
— Shirley Smith

Separate from the attempts to lower recidivism, another common rationale for harsher sentences is retribution. Such arguments place emphasis on victims of violent attacks, and a need to ‘see justice served’ by exacting revenge upon the perpetrators. However it is difficult to see how the desire for vengeance is worth the price. The average cost to the taxpayer of keeping an offender in prison for a year is nearly $100,000 (which may be contrasted with the average cost per day of an offender on a community based sentence of $10.04). Furthermore, New Zealand is already second only to the US in the proportion of prisoners to the total population, and is facing a looming crisis because we do not have enough prison beds. A desire for revenge against murderers and rapists is understandable, but we must not lost sight of the fact that while violence is a cost to the community, the incarceration of offenders is also extremely costly. If longer sentences lead to an increase in violent crime, significant costs to the taxpayer and one of the largest incarcerated populations per capita in the world, is the satisfaction of our base desire for revenge worth it? And if so, how many more violent crimes should we be willing to allow per year in order to ensure that convicted criminals are satisfactorily punished?

Whilst I agree with conservative ‘sensible sentencing’ advocates we ought to do everything we can to prevent violence, imposing harsher sentences has been shown time and time again to actually worsen the situation. As Shirley Smith pointed out, ‘the threat of imprisonment does not deter, and prison does not reform’.

Further reading:

• ‘On the ‘Three Strikes’ Policy and the SAS in Kabul’
• ‘Act MP Accused of Misleading Public on ‘Three-Strikes” Effectiveness’
• ‘Police, judge attack three strikes policy’
• ‘The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism’
• ‘Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-based Approach’
• ‘Blameless Babes’ – Dame Sian Elias’ Shirley Smith Address

This photo was taken aboard the private spacecraft. At this point being in space was still pretty new for me, so I was fairly excited about it.

When I got back to Earth, NASA wanted me for another mission. This time we went to the International Space Station. I wasn’t busy or anything so I agreed to go. It was really fun too.

This picture is of me with the NASA space shuttle. We made some mission critical upgrades to some mission critical systems and went on a mission critical space walk.  This was my first time doing a space walk. It was pretty neat.

Sorry if the photo is hard to make out. It’s tricky taking photos in space because of all the mission critters!

In this picture I am hanging out with Rob and Chris who are two other astronauts. We are attaching a new truss segment to the ISS and beginning to upgrade the power grid or something like that. I like this photo because you can see my house in the background.

After the upgrades were done we flew home. Then I woke up and realised it was all a dream.

Anyway I hope you like my pictures. I am glad I brought my camera, otherwise my friends would never believe that I really went to space in my dream.

By Richard age 24

However if you don’t want to wade through all that, you can just check out the following.

Most memorable moments from the 2009 season:

Beating my previous record  for earliest turns of the season: Mt Cheeseman – 10th May

The skies started puking in early May delivering over a foot of fresh snow, so Alan and Ryan from the Snow.co.nz forum organised a daytrip up to the mountains to check out the conditions and get a few turns in. We drove up to the skifield gate and hiked/snowshoed for 45mins to get to the lodge. There were a fair number of skifield staff/club members around preparing for the season, as well as a couple of ski-tourers with skins. From the lodge we hiked another 15mins or so to get a wee 30 second run. We followed that up with a wee kicker session before skiing back down to the car. There were heaps of rocks around; my new Volkl Gotamas (which were being used for the first time) were pretty scratched up, but nothing too major. Ryan’s snowboard edge took a pretty big pounding though.
On the whole a good day out – nothing compared to a good mid-season day, but fun all the same – plus I beat my previous record (Queen’s Birthday Weekend) for earliest turns of the season by 2 or 3 weeks!

The Temple Truck breaking down again, and again, and again: State Highway 73 – 6th & 7th August

Through July to early September, I spent a lot of time carrying out Temple Basin food resupply missions. A typical TB food run involves waking up at dawn and heading to Trents to spend a few hours working through a several thousand dollar shopping list. After loading about half a ton of supplies onto the truck, I head to Growers Direct to pick up more groceries, then drive two hours up to the Basin, usually arriving around sunset. I then spend the next hour or two sending the food up to the lodge in the goodslift while fending off keas, then commence the hour-long walk up to the field by the light of my head-torch (or if I’m lucky, the moon). Whilst the food run (usually Thursday) is a long hard day’s work, you get all your volunteer work out of the way in one go, and get to spend the next few days skiing without having to worry about more chores. It’s a fairly good gig.

The fly in the ointment is that you have to do it all in the Temple Truck. This ancient behemoth is notorious for its unreliability, and has broken down on me more times than I care to remember. (Admittedly, the first time was my fault – let’s just say that I’ll never forget to check the oil again).

This season provided a few hairy episodes, including a couple of trips undertaken with one headlight and no indicators, horn or interior lighting. (Ever worn a headtorch while driving so you can see the speedometer? I have). However undoubtedly the worst of the season was the Fire & Ice food run, which involved 2 days’ work (dawn to midnight), 8 hours driving the Temple truck, 5 tonnes of food and alcohol, and 2 truck breakdowns.

Day 1′s breakdown happened at the Arthur’s Pass railway station when I stopped briefly to visit the toilet. When I got back to the truck it wouldn’t start. I spent the next hour defending two tons of exposed food from half a dozen ravenous keas with a ski pole, while trying to get the truck going again. To compound my frustration, the AA refused to help me because my membership apparently doesn”t cover vehicles that size (Never mind that the size wouldn’t have made a difference in giving me a jump or tow start – fuck you AA!). Eventually I managed to get a tow start from the friendly local DoC ranger (Cheers Chris, you’re a champion!) and finally delivered my supplies to Temple Basin (minus a few loaves of bread – casualties of the kea war). On arrival I was informed that after unloading I’d immediately have to return to Christchurch to get the truck fixed and pick up more alcohol. Not only that, but during the two hour return journey I could not under any circumstances allow the truck engine to stop or stall, as I would not be able to get it started again on my own. Fortunately I arrived shortly after midnight with the truck intact.

I spent most of Day 2 waiting for the truck to be fixed, and finally managed to get on the road in the late afternoon with nearly two tons of beer on the back. The trip went smoothly until Flock Hill, when I suffered a complete gearbox failure while coasting down the steep incline. Luckily, I managed to pull into a siding not 200 metres from Flock Hill Lodge, and was able to use their phone to call for reinforcements. The next few hours were spent guarding the precious load and trying to keep warm while smaller vehicles ferried the alcohol 40 minutes up the road. I finally arrived at the Temple Basin lodge around midnight, where I was treated to a well-earned beer .

Tracking out the fresh pow before the student hoardes arrive: Temple Basin – 1st August

The morning of the 80s Party heralded back-to-back shallow pow runs in fresh, beautiful, untracked snow with barely a chunky spot in sight and barely half a dozen punters on the field. Stoked!

Knocking off the Grand Traverse: Temple Basin – 9th August

Brian and I trekked from the top of the Elevator Chute, across the top of Upper Bills (just under B’limit) to reach a point just short of Cassidy peak at sunset, culminating in my longest Temple Basin run to date – 10 minutes from the peak to the bottom of Temple tow (including the Cassidy bridge crossing on skis). Although my skiing was a little sketchy due to loose boots and sticky snow, I managed to hold it together and make the descent without bailing nor losing the ear-to-ear grin from my face. A fitting end to an epic Fire & Ice weekend.

Hikers in Upper Bill's. Snaking past them was sadistically fun.

Poser

View of our line from the bottom, just after sunset

Winning a t-shirt in the Gnomes Freeride Competition: Temple Basin – 22nd August
Downhill Basin (the originally intended site for the comp) was out because there wasn’t enough snow to allow a good line, so the comp was moved to the top of Upper Bills. Everyone got one run to show their stuff. We had earlier been advised against ‘hucking our meat’ off big drops if we were unsure about sticking the landing, and that the judging would instead focus on aggressive, fluid, controlled riding. With that in mind (plus my comparative lack of ability) I chose a real mellow line with no airs, and a quick dodge between some rocks at the start. I didn’t see my entire score card, but from what I did see I could tell that I had done pretty much as expected – a good score for control but a poor score for my line. I ended up coming 14th (out of about 20), and Neil picked me out for a T-shirt spot prize due to my years of service (cough), so I was stoked with that.

Simmo's line (click for big version - and I mean BIG)

Actually getting to sleep in my car: Broken River – 31st August to 2nd September
My plan for the winter was to spend the vast majority living in my car and exploring each of the 12 Chill ski fields. Foruntately/unfortunately that didn’t happen – I ended up getting regular volunteer work, accommodation and food at Temple Basin, so I stayed there instead. As a result my investment in a car electrical system, roof box, curtains, mattress and camping stove were largely wasted, and my planned ‘Great Winter Roadtrip’ turned into a ‘Great Winter Ski-Bumming at Temple Basin’. However I did get three awesome days and two nights camping out in my car at the bottom of the Broken River access road.

The original plan was to try to make it to Cragieburn, Cheeseman and Mt Olympus and thus finish off the Selwyn fields that I hadn’t yet visited. Due to weather I ended up only managing Cragieburn and Broken River. The two Cragieburn days were dominated by strong winds. There was a fair amount of fresh snow on the ground, but the winds had redistributed it so that ridges and exposed points were extremely icy. The upshot of this was that the basins, gullies and chutes were filled to the brim with powdery goodness, and any ski tracks were quickly erased by the gale-force winds. Hooray, unlimited freshies!

The weather during the second day was horrible, and the word on the grapevine was that everywhere was closed but that Broken River would be opening at 6pm for night powder skiing. I spent the day idly mooching round Castle Hill and hanging out at Flock Hill Lodge, then when dusk came I made a move up to BR. It had been snowing most of the day and was getting pretty Epic – over a foot of fresh pow on the ground, woop woop! Everyone was completely stoked, with powder-day grins from ear to ear. I bumped into a few familiar faces while there – these days it’s getting pretty hard to visit a club field without spotting someone I know. I guess the club field community’s pretty small.

Sleeping in the car was reasonably comfortable, albeit a little cramped and cold. The new car battery setup only managed to power my laptop for an hour unfortunately, meaning that I needed to run the engine for a bit to allow me to finish my Deadwood episodes.

On the way up Cragieburn on the third day, the CHARDIS’s snow chains struggled to pull the car up the road, and broke a few links. I tried to persevere but the chains on the front right tyre ended up ripping themselves apart and wrapping themselves around the axle of the wheel. I had to remove the wheel in order to pry the chain loose, which proved to be an adventure in the fresh snow on a steep hill. Eventually I got it off and managed to get a tow up to the field from a helpful dude in a 4wd. That’s the last time I buy cheap shitty chains off trademe – next time I’m getting some snow-sweats.

Watching the Black Diamond Big Mountain Competition: Temple Basin – 5th & 6th September

Screw rugby and cricket – what could be better than reclining in a deckchair with a beer on a sunny skifield and watching some of NZ’s best freeriders slay a few epic lines?  A highlight included watching Neil Williman and Sam Smoothy hit the huge cliff near Main chute, and compete over who could claim the biggest drop.

I managed to stick my first ever 180 that weekend as well, which was also pretty rad

Enjoying a beer on the summit, at midnight, under a full moon, with a group of pro skiers: Temple Basin – 5th September

The evening of the Big Mountain Comp was clear with a bright full moon, so instead of partying, I joined Ross and a small party of pro skiers to climb to the top of Hot Pocket. We left the lodge at around 10pm and climbed from Temple tow with ice axes in hand. The snow was pretty hard, which made for fun climbing if not for good skiing. We had had a beer on top of the ridgeline overlooking the Mingha backbowl at 11:30pm, and skied down at midnight. It was an amazing night – I am completely stoked on it.

Enjoying a well-earned beer on the summit

Club Championships: Temple Basin – 12th September

The photo says it all really:

Sticking my biggest ever air: Temple Basin – 13th September
“ok here we go… hmmm going a little fast… stay balanced… hit the kicker… HOOOOOLY SHIT THAT’S HIGH… hold it together… spot the landing… absorb the impact… keep your skis together… don’t eat shit… alright I’m not gonna fall, sweet… ok time for a celebratory fist pump… fuck yeah!”

‘Breaking hearts and saving lives’: Temple Basin – 19th September

Saturday the 19th (International Talk Like a Pirate Day and Aoife’s birthday) was the also beach party day, and the weather turned out perfectly with sunny blue skies and light winds. We had a bbq outside on the veranda with a badminton net (complete with coke bottle shuttlecock), and all the staff were wearing Hawaiian shirts. The most exciting event of the day (for me at least) was injuring myself in an act of derring-do:

It was pretty icy in the morning on Temple tow. I was manning the rental dept, and rented some gear to a Danish girl then taught her how to use the ropetow, and she got to the top first time. I rode up with her, checked she was ok, then skied back down. I was hanging around the bottom and noticed she was taking her time, so I rode back up to check if she was ok. I got about halfway up the tow and she just started sliding down out of control from the top, lost both her skis and slid at breakneck pace towards a field of rocks. It was terrifying, she was screaming and looked like she was gonna nail herself. She mostly missed the first patch of rocks (thank god), while I hung on to the tow and willed it to go faster. As soon as she was almost level with me I jumped off the tow, bunny-hopped some rocks and skied over to her as fast as I could and grabbed her to help her stop, but we slid together for another five metres or so until I could get us to a stop. She had broken her wrist on a rock and had to be helicoptered to a hospital. While we were treating her I noticed that my arm had a fair bit of blood on it from the icy slide, cos I was only wearing a hawaiian shirt at the time. It was a really bad graze and took a month to heal, but it was totally worth it for the manly story.

Catching the ultimate snow day: Temple Basin – 23rd September
The 23rd was hands-down my best day of the season. We’d had about 10-15cm of fresh snow the day before, and it was snowing on and off that morning. Shortly after I arrived at Downhill, the sun came out for an hour and I got some sweet turns in good vis before heading in for lunch. It socked in during lunchtime and delivered about 5cm which covered up most of the morning’s tracks. Then as we were heading outside again, the sun reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and we had 4 hours of bluebird freshies! The afternoon snow was if anything even more fun than the morning’s, and we thrashed it till 5pm. I got the last tow out of Downhill back through Lower Bill’s, and had a sweeeet run through Cassidy chute. Then, to top it all off, it started snowing again less than 5mins after I arrived back in the lodge. Perfect

Favourite shot of the season: Hucking in Downhill Basin

The epic snow was enough to tire out even Willy

Playing snowboard instructor: Temple Basin – 27th September to 2nd October
During TB’s final week we were overwhelmed by the arrival of 26 kids between the ages of 5-16. The mountain became a noisy place filled with, in the words of Dylan Moran, ‘miniature drunks’, whose only purpose seemed to be converting sugar into violence.
Whilst we had a couple of ski instructors, there were no qualified snowboard instructors on the hill. As I used to snowboard before switching to skiing a couple of seasons ago, I grabbed a board out of ski hire and gave the kids some lessons. It’s a pretty cool feeling when one of the kids comes up and says thanks for the lesson, and that the tips I gave him really helped his snowboarding.

TB’s final open day of the season: Temple Basin – 4th October
After a season of cajolling, Hugo and I finally managed to drag Aoife up to Bill’s Basin and show her the field’s full potential.

Aoife laying down some turns in Cassidy Chute - not bad for someone in her first season

Aoife and Hugo, coming out of Lower Bill's

Staff-only powder day: Temple Basin – 5th October
After the final TB open day, the staff finally got a day to themselves to pack their bags, tidy the lodge, take down the trip cords, and of course ski the empty slopes! I spent a couple of hours at Downhill taking down trips and picking out pow between the ice patches, then headed back through Lower Bill’s with a pack full of tools.

Fresh pow on closing day, and not a punter in sight - woohoo!

Skiing on Halloween: Mt Olympus – 31st October
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.
Mt Olympus announced a final weekend of skiing over Halloween with a forecast for blue skies and corn snow. Paul invited me to join him so I ignored my dire financial situation and tagged along.
The access tow wasn’t running so we had to hike to the lodge. The walk’s difficulty showed me just how much the last month had cost my fitness. The spring sun was boiling, everything was exhaustingly hot and the snow was spring corn, which melted and became very slow after lunch in sun-affected areas. The riding was still pretty sick though.

Final 2009 Winter Tally:
Snow days: 43
Ski fields visited: 6

Cheers 2009 for an awesome ski season!

What happened? You used to be cool. We used to see each other all the time. Like when I was with my mates after a good drinking session and needed junk food, or when I was pulling an all-nighter to finish an essay and wanted caffeine, or just ’cause I was running on a weird student sleeping pattern and needed an extra dinner ingredient after midnight. And it wasn’t just that you were open 24 hours, either. You had lots of great points: You had nearly anything I wanted stocked on your shelves, and your staff were so very helpful (for people who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world), and your music… well, okay, your music was always fucking unbearable, I’ll admit.

But overall we forgave each other our faults. I could ignore your terrible music, and you never said anything about that time I accidentally took a muffin without paying for it. We learned to accept our differences.

But then you changed.

It began when you said you’d drop the 24-hour opening time. Many of us were incredulous. We couldn’t believe that you were going to get rid of your most beloved feature. Was it us? What did we say? Whatever it was, we swore we didn’t mean it. We just wanted everything to go back to how it was before. You didn’t listen. Against the largely silent protests of Upper Riccarton’s nocturnal comunity, you cut your hours and with them our hearts.

Now I know it’s not entirely your fault. Things were said and done on both sides. You’re not to blame for my decision to move to a flat more than a minute’s walk away. Not having you as a neighbour any more has changed my attitude towards you, I admit. I know I don’t visit you anywhere near as often as I used to, and I’m sorry. But I think part of the reason I no longer visit is because it’s too hard. It just tears me up inside to see what you’ve done to yourself, what you’ve become.

Shortly after I left, you began a major face-lift. You never said why: I had always thought you were beautiful, and didn’t understand why you had to change. But apparently change you must, so I resigned myself to it, and to the knowledge that visiting you would be slightly more annoying for the next six months or so. So I stuck by you through the store makeover, hoping that when you emerged from your scaffolding and drop-cloths, you would be as beautiful as a butterfly emerging from its chrysallis, free of its old caterpillar form.

Instead we got – well, you know what we got.

…I guess the new store’s kinda alright. I mean, the pick’n'mix nuts are gone, and the aisles seem thinner and harder to navigate, and these days I feel like you’re fucking always out of stock of whatever it is I’m looking for. But on the whole, it’s not really much worse than it was before. The problem is, it’s not really much better either. If I sit through six months of the type of shit you pulled while you were having your big makeover, I expect a bloody nice transformation. Instead, you just shifted everything around a bit and gave it a wee polish. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something here, maybe you had some private reason for changing that you’re not sharing with us (self-esteem issues after I left, perhaps?). Whatever your reason, I felt jipped, like my loyalty had been rewarded with a cold shoulder.

So you must agree with me when I say that recently, our relationship has been strained. Where once I had openly professed my love and adoration for you, I began to avoid you, and even once or twice caught myself saying that I hated visiting you. I can barely believe it myself. How did it come to this?

The last straw came this week. On Friday night I visited you to pick up some booze and some flat supplies. It was all good, I managed to get in and out with minimum hassle, and didn’t stop to chat. It wasn’t until the next day that I checked my receipt to transfer cash from the flat account that I noticed that you had charged me $28.56 for the Mac’s Gold 15-pack. Having spent five minutes hunting out the best deal I distinctly remembered that they had been priced at $18 (with $15 for a 12-pack, both on special), which I thought was plenty expensive enough. I don’t want to sound bittter or anything, but if I pay $28 for a 15-pack of Mac’s Gold then they better be gold fucking plated. I have no idea whether it was spite or merely lack of attention, but you overcharged me, Countdown Church Corner. You overcharged me ten bucks.

Last night I dropped by again to ask you what you had to say about the matter. Maybe you could refund me the money with minimum fuss, and we could both put this unpleasant episode behind us. Alas, it was not to be. The person I talked to looked like she wanted to get the fuck outta that store twice as bad as everyone else (who could blame her?). I asked her about my beer price. She acted surprised, and fetched someone from the liquor section. Whilst he did not specifically remember the specials from last Friday, he claimed that $28 was the regular price for the Mac’s 15-pack, and perhaps only the 12-pack had been discounted. Perhaps I had selected the wrong one? I thought this was preposterous, as I clearly remembered comparing the specials on both amounts and choosing the 15. However I said little, not wanting to disturb the poor minimum-wage earners. They recommended that I talk to the Liquor manager the following day, and left me to check out this week’s specials, which included 15-packs of Mac’s Gold for $24. Save $4.

I was so sure you had overcharged me, but now I don’t know what to think. You’ve messed with my head one too many times, Countdown Church Corner. The hours change was all my heart could take, but then you dashed it against the twin rocks of crappy store makeovers and inconsistent beer pricing. I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore. I think I need some time alone to think about our relationship, and whether we have a future together.

If you need to contact me for any reason, I’ll be at fuckin’ Pac-n-Slave.

Yours no longer,

Richard

So what are you waiting for? Get spinning!

This isn’t the first Steinlager spin-off. They currently also sell the Harvey Keitel-endorsed ‘Steinlager Pure’, for those who like Steinlager ‘Classic’ but feel they aren’t being charged enough for it.

Steinlager Edge is ‘New Zealand’s first mid-strength, full flavoured premium lager’ – ‘mid-strength’ indicating that it is 3.5% alcohol-by-volume (ABV). This places it squarely between light beer (2% alcohol) and premium full-strength beer (5%). However, its price is similar to ‘classic’ Steinlager, meaning that if you buy Steinlager Edge then you are essentially spending the same amount of money for less alcohol content. If you only want to be 70% as boozed as you usually get but you really like paying premium beer prices then this is the beer for you. That sounds a little strange to me, but I guess I can understand it.

However, the name Lion Nathan have chosen for their new product surprises me. What is it supposed to be the ‘edge’ of? As a mid-strength beer, it lies squarely between light beer and premium beer. It is marketed at busy professionals who drink beer because they like the taste but don’t like to get boozed. There is no manner in which this beer is edgy. I can only imagine that its name is intended to reflect that the beer sits tenuously on the edge of what New Zealand consumers are willing to pay for.

Geoff Griggs of the Society of Beer Advocates (There’s a Society of Beer Advocates? What are their meetings like?) says the move is a ‘logical extension of a very powerful brand’ but questioned whether there would be much demand among thirsty Kiwis. ‘Traditionally, mid-strength has not been very strong in New Zealand because our mainstream beers are only typically 4 per cent, so you’re only talking half a per cent less than our mainstream beers,’ he said. ‘That said, if you’re a premium lager drinker who wouldn’t be seen dead drinking those old- fashioned New Zealand draughts, then a 3.5 per cent option for drivers or lunchtime drinkers does make some sense.’^[1]

Will there really be a market in New Zealand for a lager that provides significantly less alcohol content for about the same price? Anyone want to place a bet on whether it will still be around in two years’ time?