Kiwi-birds and Hobbits.

New Zealand, if you didn't know, is where they filmed The Lord of the Rings. SCA, if you didn't know, is the Society of Creative Anachronisms, a group of like-minded folks who try to recreate the more tasteful parts of the middle ages (not enough shit for accuracy).

I have a friend at work who's a SCA-buff. She's the only person I know that's sexually attracted to Elijah Wood. (Except Joe, but that doesn't count. Hi, Joe!) Her sister's working in New Zealand.

So, of course, that's where she went for Christmas.

She had little to say about the state of the short folk there, but did mention that NZ children do not eat--and find disgusting the idea of--peanut butter sandwhiches. In fact, for breakfast, they eat a kind of salty meat spread on toast. Drug use and cigarette use are shrugged off, but the commercials for "drink" driving are so grotesque that everyone screams, "Turn it off!" One of them involves a pregnant woman who's rear-ended by a drunk. Ugh.

The roads have few stoplights and many roundabouts. There are lots of Asian people who, according to a friend of the sister's, "can't drive." Apparently, emergency vehicles have terrible problems getting around because none of the immigrants know to pull over when they see the flashing lights.

She brought back a chocolate banana marshmallow fish for Lee.

He said to say, "Thanks."