Discovery

I had never been to WellyCon before, but others had told me about it a few years ago. Only three weeks before the event, I saw it advertised in the ComicCon New Zealand flyer. Apparently all the big NZ geek events were running on the same weekend: Queen’s Birthday weekend.

The bigger, more well-known geek event, also running Queen’s Birthday weekend was Armageddon Expo, the annual entertainment and pop culture event. I’ve been to Armageddon many times (even cosplaying as Gordon Freeman and Axe Cop), but found it less and less to my liking, as it focussed on cartoons, television and cinema, and less about video games and board games.

I asked my lovely wife for the privilege of going to just the Saturday of WellyCon, leaving her with our daughter. Lucky is the man whose wife lets him go to WellyCon without her!

A Community Mindset

Because I was going by myself, I wondered how games got started at WellyCon. It turns out that there’s a very large game library at WellyCon. It’s full of games brought along by other attendees and left to be played by others. You can rustle up a group, choose a game, claim a table, set up and start playing.

I wasn’t expecting to know many people there, and I wasn’t going as part of a group, so I decided to only join games looking for extra players. As it turns out, they have these big signs you can put on your table to make it easy for players like me to find your table.

Turning Up

There was plenty of parking at Wellington Girls in Thorndon, if you knew where to find it. I circled around before I found the tiny WellyCon sign leading in to the parking field.

Once through the door, I walked around the busy atrium, admiring the magnificent stack of board games, and spotting one of the signs, and jumping into a game of Star Wars Carcassonne.

Star Wars Carcassonne is a lighter version of the original Carcassonne where cities are asteroid fields, roads are trade routes, no farms (space is empty) and cloisters are planets, and a fun planet-conquering mechanic which lets you roll battle dice to steal them. None of us had played this variant, and one of us had never played a Carcassonne. We read the rules, and learned how to play, and enjoyed ourselves very much. And I won, which is nice.

Family Jewels

Half-way through the first game, I got a text message from Adrianne, one of the organisers of WellyCon informing me that I had won a spot prize. After my game, I went to claim my prize.

Choosing from almost 90 prizes, I selected a set of plastic gems and gold nuggets for playing Splendor with. They are beautiful and decadent, and must add a further tactile experience to the game. I should not that at this point, I have played a lot of Splendor on my mobile phone, but did not own a physical copy of Splendor.

Much Game. Very Lose. Wow.

I ended up playing Shadows over Camelot with the same two people (Caleb and Fiona) and two other people. The traitor won by sabotaging too many quests, then falsely accusing another player to end the game. We didn’t complete a single quest. Fun game though!

Shadows of Camelot! #wellycon pic.twitter.com/CE9dYMlcxm

— Brett Taylor (@Glutnix) June 4, 2016

After publically not collecting my lunch, and then correcting, and consuming it, I played a game of Splendor with some older gamers (not revealing my gem stash), and was thoroughly trounced. I got locked out of the ruby market, losing a lot of tempo in the process. I did, however, remind all those players that you can reserve a face-down card from any of the three stocks.

Trading Post

I had brought with me a selection of my least played games, hoping to trade them for slightly better games. WellyCon hosts a trading corner, where you can leave your games on a silent auction or for sale. I missed the (seemingly non-existent) face to face trading session at 12:30, but put all my games in a box marked “Offers” and waited for calls. Maybe not a great strategy, but I did get a call or two, settling one deal that day.

For the Hoard

I finally got a copy to go with the plastic gems I won

Walking around I spotted a demo table with Cheeky Parrot Games showing off their Kickstarter card game Hoard, which I had already seen online. I sat down and played a full game with Tim Kings-Lynne, one of the game’s designers, and Julia Schiller, Director of Cheeky Parrot Games. They’re lovely people, and maybe they let me beat them at their own game. I got to talking to Tim and his exploits on the Miramar Peninsula working at Weta Digital, how the game has developed, and thoroughly enjoyed myself for a good while there.

After this I hung out with my old buddy Chris and Mel for a while, catching up on old games and old times. He also convinced me to put my games on silent auction. We then sat down and they introduced me to Codenames. Being the code master is hard! We played three games before I had to leave for the night and rejoin my family.

Last Dash for Cash

Before I left, I closed a trade! I traded a copy of Power Grid along with the China/Korea map expansion for $40. And on the way out, I passed by the Cerberus Games booth and spotted a copy of Splendor that had not been there all day, which I swiftly secured and took home.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself that day. Playing five different games, most of which I had never played before. I made new friends, won prizes, sold games at auction, caught up with old friends, and bought a game I have wanted for a while.

You should go to WellyCon!

Will I return for WellyCon 10 next year? ABSOLUTELY. My wife is supremely sore she missed out.

Should you? If you have enjoy learning and playing new and interesting board games, Definitely! And I learned there is a Mini-WellyCon coming up, maybe Labour Weekend? See you there?

Japan
As a geek, it’s no surprise that I’d be interested in the Japanese culture. I’m not a huge anime or manga fanboy, though I have dabbled. I’d definitely want to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum.
I’d really want to board with a Japanese family for a few weeks, though I’d have to learn much more Japanese.

Easter Island
This is that place with the big “moai” or tiki heads. They say the people who lived on Easter Island killed all the trees to move and erect those heads. And that you can mountain bike around the island in less than a day.

Canada
Yeah, not that exciting but there’s some pretty awesome people who live in Canada. LoadingReadyRun. Brian Lee O’Malley. Shatner.

To take a big step like that is a bit much, so to break it down a little:

• Read, write and converse in Japanese at an intermediate level by the end of 2010.
• Visit Japan for a holiday at some point between 2010 and 2014, and visit Tokyo (especially Akihabra), Kyoto and Osaka, and do tourist-stuff. Also the Studio Ghibli Museum is a must.
• Find a job, preferably teaching web development, maybe teaching English so I can get a work visa.
• Work in Japan for at least 6 months by the end of 2014.

Not so bad a plan, eh?  It’s quite flexible, and subject to change, but it’s the current target.

Why you might ask? Well, I’ve always wanted to learn a language, and the Japanese culture, history and lifestyle really interests me, and I’m single so I don’t have anyone holding me back.

So I’ve bought a book (Japanese Step by Step by Gene Nishi), and am keeping an eye out for beginner’s Japanese courses, so I can sign up for one that’s running at a good time for me.

I have a friendly workmate who spent a long time in Japan a few years ago who is encouraging me along. We go for lunch at Japanese restaraunts around town; he’s got many of us at work hooked on katsukari (pork fillet curry with rice)… mmm katsukari! Damn, I’m hungry now…

So I think in the short term, I’m pretty sussed. I’ll be signing up for a beginner’s Japanese course after September, and I’ve got a friend or two who I can practice with.  Maybe I’ll make friends with some cute Japanese girls in Wellington, who knows? I’m pretty open minded about the whole thing.

What is kind of weird is being 26 right now, I’ll be 33 in 2014. But you’re as old as you feel, and with me, that currently can range from 21 to 35 right now, -_-;

Anyway, does anyone out there in the world wide tubes have any suggestions on learning Japanese? Tips and tricks? Must have resources? Must visit places?

Also, anyone know how to get my Mac so I could type katakana and hiragana with a Dvorak keyboard layout? It wants me to use QWERTY instead

So we did. And let me tell you, I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s nothing revolutionary or taxing, but it was heaps of fun to redesign and make the templates as we went, with Michelle right there working with me.

This comment from The Abandonware Blog about Bunny Abandonware 4.0 really made me feel good:

Finally some nice scene news! Bunny from Bunny Abandonware has been mentioning is for quiet some time now but finally managed to get the new version of her website online and I must say (again) that it kicks ass! The unique colors used by only one abandonware site, the wonderfull [sic] navigation, the nice kinda web 2.0 style with all the gradients and big buttons ‘n stuff… damned pretty.

LOL, I did some Web 2.0 :rolleyes: But I’m taking it all as a compliment. I believe that what Michelle does with her abandonware hobby is crucial for the survival, not just of the games, but of the memories. Abandonware, while legally dubious, is less a case of stealing and more the case of paying tribute. I keep telling Michelle she’s not just another retro gamer; she’s an archivist — the curator of her own museum. A museum where the exhibits remind her visitors of the way video games used to be, and where not only games, but ourselves as people have come since then, for better or for worse.

I think the best Christmas present I gave myself was when for Christmas I gave my brother a huge pack of water balloons . I had moved out of home to Wellington and I had come to realise that I missed him. We had fun in that back yard that one day, running around with the sole purpose of cooling off and having a blast. But I did it with the motive of having that memory to look back on — a careless, happier day in my history. It worked, and it’s one of the most cherished memories I have. It didn’t cost a lot.

Memories are worth gold, but the most valuable memories are the ones that cost the least.

I haven’t blogged this yet, but I’ve been working at Natcoll Design Technology for over a year now. I started as a part-time Multimedia tutor, and now I’m the Diploma of Web Development Course Coordinator for the Wellington campus. I teach on average 18 hours a week, with the rest in prep, paperwork and management. Really fun job, besides the paperwork I even get to help out with the tech support sometimes… but eh, what ya gonna do?

. . .

Mid last year, I moved from downtown Cuba St to the boxed valley suburb of Karori (said to be the largest suburb in the southern hemisphere) with the intention of eating better and getting fit.

I’ve got the getting fit thing working somewhat: Mountain Biking. Karori has a world renowned mountain bike park running up, and most importantly, down, the back of it. I got my bike at the start of December, a nice GT Avalanche 3.0, and I’ve been slowly discovering the many tracks it holds. It’s really a beautiful place, and with summer turning up finally, I’m going to make the most of it.

I originally got the bike to commute to and from work every day. Karori is up in the hills, and the city, where I work, is at sea-level. It takes me 15 minutes door-to-door every morning, and depending on my route, 30-50 minutes coming home uphill. I don’t really enjoy exercise, but at least I know I’ll have achieved something every day, no matter how my day might have been.

1. I sucked at tag. Primary school was pretty hellish for me — I was unfit, I had no friends, and I could never catch anyone. It’s a part of my life that I like to forget. Because I had no-one who liked me or understood me (my parents admit to not really understanding me and my interests when I was young) I turned to reading books and learning. If I had to pick someone who I think understood me when I was young, I’d probably have to say my grandmother on my mother’s side, Lois, who unfortunately passed away while I was at Intermediate, or just starting, I can’t remember. She would buy books for me all the time, and it was her who I credit for getting me into computers and specifically programming. An Osbourne book on Basic for various computers like the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80, and the really simple game listings within it. I would spend hours staring at that code, trying to figure out what the game would do. I wouldn’t get any kind of computer until after she passed away, and then it was a 286 and no-one told me where GW-Basic was.

   Gosh, there’s a bit there. Does that count as only one?

2. I love computer games, but in reality, I’m not a hardcore gamer. I like the games that I can pick up, play for 15 minutes, and then put to one side. To this end, I rarely finish a game. A mild case of ADD? It’s certainly not AD&D I can count on one hand the games I’ve clocked without cheats:
   • Half-Life (PC)
   • Half-Life 2 (PC)
   • Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC) (but that barely counts)
   • Phoenix Wright (Nintendo DS) (but it’s mostly trial-and-error. Heh, trial, law game)
   • Doukutsu Monogatari (aka Cave Story) (PC)

   Yet recently I’ve bought so many DS and GBA games for my Nintendo DS Lite, and haven’t clocked any others

3. I’m not allergic to anything, but I have had cancer. I have a giant scar on my back from where they removed a melanoma (skin cancer). Luckily it came back from the labs that it hadn’t spread, but I can’t give blood anymore. If they’d let me, I’d go every six months. So if you’re reading this, and you are able to give blood, you should go do it — it helps so many people out there, and only inconveniences you for a few hours; heck, most workplaces will let you go give blood on work time!
4. When I want to chill out, the forest is my chill out space. I love to just go somewhere and listen, relax. Rivers are also very awesome. I was baby sitting a couple of my mum’s friend’s kids for the weekend one time in the middle of summer, and they had some really large inner tubes, so we took them out on the river out the back of their house, and had a ball and we all got so tired, we walked back, packed stuff away, and we all fell asleep in the lounge where we were sitting, totally unexpectedly. It was probably the quietest they ever were!
5. I like chiptunes. Music made on old retro hardware that sounds like it could have come out of an old GameBoy or C64. I especially like the stuff that comes out of 8bitpeoples
6. Bonus Fact: I don’t like peas. But that said, they are tolerable when mixed with other vegetables. But by themselves, blargh.

Bob Brown (Confessions of a Guru), Hamish MacEwan (self titled), Hillary (Kiwirose in Canada), Dan Milward (Mind of Mufasa) (fix your feeds, they’re broken), and Unbounded (self-titled), even though Unbounded is the kind of guy who would abhor this kinda meme; TAG – You’re it!

Turns out Google Maps is now higher resolution than smaps or ZoomIn. You can get down to the level where cars are blobs of pixels. Also, Google Maps has more up to date photography — you can see the work on the Inner City Bypass (same location on ZoomIn, smaps).

To be honest, I’m glad that we’ve finally got some decent competition in New Zealand’s online maps — Wises was sucking ass ever since I saw the original ‘ajax map’ maps.search.ch from Switzerland — long before Google Maps was around.

I’m looking for a quiet cafe/meeting place where we can find a bit of space, hang out for the whole afternoon, buy good coffee (to enjoy AND compensate the cafe), and use Cafenet. Of particular interest is being a few meters away from anyone else – so it’s not noisy, and you won’t be easily overheard.

He mentions Olive Café, and while I haven’t been there, walking past it, it doesn’t feel gritty enough for me

A great meeting place I enjoy regularly is Katipo Café, which is upstairs from the 1-2-3 Dollar shop on Willis St, near New World Metro. It has good food, decent coffee, and my style of music — but not so loud you can’t hear the person next to you, unlike Espressoholic

Espressoholic has CaféNet, but it’s WAY too loud there at times, especially when it’s packed. It’s good for working by yourself though.

Unfortunately, they don’t have CaféNet at Katipo, but if you can get a seat near the window, you can get enough of a signal from somewhere near by.

…

From my point of view, quiet cafés in Wellington, especially those that are open late night, are far and few between.

A thought that has crossed my mind is there is definetely a niche for a quiet designer/geek café in Wellington. It might focus on CaféNet and good coffee and food, but also be a venue for public geek meetups and seminars: have a projector and sound setup, recording speeches and putting them up on the café’s podcast…?

And hey, you can help! I need people to sponsor me to make it all worthwhile. This year’s famine is about stopping child labour. For every $300 raised through the famine, World Vision will help a family in India to start a business so they can support themselves without needing their children to work in bonded labour.

And I’ve discovered that you can even sponsor me online! World Vision have set up a system that lets Faminers register their famine books online and get people to sponsor them online! It’s pretty neat.

So you can go pledge your sponsorship of me here:

Even if you only give NZD$2, that little part will go towards helping children from more than twelve countries worldwide. $10 will provide a family of five with a health checkup and basic medical supplies in India. $150 will provide seeds for one Tanzania primary school so they can provide daily meals for their students for a year!

It all adds up! Sponsor me and help change the world!

Wow. This is pretty awesome, because while a lot of people don’t think he should be on the street, he is, so the least we can do is learn more about his reasons.

After purchasing what I thought would a BigPond prepaid internet set up pack, and discovering that it was instead a prepaid internet recharge code at a local IGA store. Since that didn’t work, and I wanted to get on the internet that night with my mactop, Mum and Neil signed up temporarily for a 7 hour dialup account. Cheers guys!

I tried taking the code back this morning. I get there around 10am and the IGA manager tried to get it refunded from BigPond, but couldn’t, and said I should try a Telstra store and get it sorted there.

So off on my little feet I went, trekking into the middle of Brisbane to find a Telstra store. They said if I’d have bought the code at their store, they’d be able to refund me easily. They said I should try going to the nearest IGA store and tell them the story.

So I stepped out to the Information Centre in the middle of Queen St, and asked where the nearest IGA was. Brunswick St, about the same distance as home to where I was, but in the opposite direction. Oh well, why not.

Around 12:30, I find this store, and ask them for a refund. No good — they tried talking to BigPond too — but in the end, they couldn’t refund it either, and told me to go back to where I bought it… DAMMIT.

So about a 2 hour trek back to the first IGA store, and about 20 minutes of waiting for the manager to sort it out, and BigPond said they would credit the AUD$9.95 to the post-paid account. Not the most ideal refund, but it would do — I was going to pay Mum and Neil back anyway.

I got home about 2pm.

. . .

It’s 36 degrees out here. I’m using my mactop on the picnic table on mum’s balcony. I’ll be dialing up soon to post this to my blog. My blisters have blisters. I don’t think I want to do any more walking. Going home to New Zealand tomorrow!

Andrew suggested we meet up at the South Bank Piazza, and then go to dinner. So we did. Andrew introduced me to his girlfriend Greta, who is very nice. We had planned to go to Decks, but it was closed, so we went to Mum and Neil’s regular, The Plough.

We ordered food. Andrew and Greta got pretty standard food, but seeing as I could have steak anywhere in the world, I tried something local and ordered the Barramundi, which is a fish dish. It was good.

Andrew invited me out with Greta and himself to Australia Zoo the next day. It sounded like fun, and spending time with a good friend is always neat

We got to Australia Zoo after a 1.5 hour drive in Andrew’s car at about 10:30am. Through the admission gates and we learned there was the main show starting at the 5000-seat Crocoseum at 11am.

Pre-show entertainment was going, with a guy in a gorilla suit walking around having fun with the crowd. After being seated for only about 15 minutes, a guy in a banana suit started sneaking around, trying not to be noticed by the gorilla. Hilarity ensued as the gorilla started chasing the banana man off stage.

An announcer came out and told us that yes, Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter would be doing the croc show today, along with his wife Terri. That was a pleasent surprise!

Then the gorilla emerged from the stage doors being chased by the banana

First up was the snake show, where we saw (from a distance) the various snakes that Australia has, along with some exotic snakes. We even saw an albino constrictor! A keeper came past all the seats in the arena and gave those who were daring enough the chance to pet a snake — wow! They feel really smooth and scaly.

Next was the tiger show, and two of the cutest tiger cubs, only 2 years old came out and played with the keepers, which was cool.

Next was the free-flight bird show, where lots of amazing birds flew back and forth across the arena to keepers who were roaming the crowds. I got heaps of photos of the brightly coloured macaws.

Then was the moment everyone was waiting for, the Croc show, with Steve Irwin. But first we were treated to a skit with a lookalike Steve and Terri pair, along with a generic cameraman. I was wondering why they weren’t putting a feed of the cameraman’s camera on the big screen, when suddenly the cameraman fell back into the croc pool (which was empty) and I realised that it was a prop camera, which gave me a chuckle

The real Steve and Terri came out, and started wisecracking about the elephants, and Terri compared the elephant’s trunk size to that of Steve’s. LOL. I think Terri really wants a third child, Steve… The croc show was pretty neat, with Steve demoing how easy it is to attract a croc, and getting the croc to do some deathrolls. That was cool.

After the show, Andrew, Greta and I had lunch, then walked around the rest of the zoo, meeting kangaroos and koalas up close — so close we could, and did, pet them. We also saw many other animals: emus, native australian birds, wombats, snakes, cassawaries, foxes, and camels.

We couldn’t see any dingoes in the dingo enclosure. I was disappointed that they didn’t have any platypus at the zoo.

All in all, an exciting day, and a very hot one at that. Highly recommended.

I had already recieved my christmas present: a return flight to Brisbane, so not much was under the tree for me. I did get this neat gel neck cooler thing — you put it in water for about 2 minutes, and it soaks up and becomes pretty solid, then you chuck it in the fridge, then you velcro it around your neck — so beautifully cold!

Today’s weather was forecast to be 38°C. Neil’s new thermometer reports 38.8°C o_O;

We went swimming at Streets Beach again today — a huge turnout for Christmas Day. Lots of beautiful women. I got a little depressed about how I didn’t have a girl to share the day with. After talking with Mum a little, I guess I lack confidence to approach the ladies.

Mum also said that she thought I’d changed; “like you’ve lost a part of yourself – I used to be able to talk to anyone”. That touched a nerve and I didn’t know what to think about myself anymore.

I don’t think I used to talk to HEAPS of people, but I guess I don’t say much anymore.

I hate making judgement calls on people.

I’ll usually only pipe up when I have something to add to a conversation, like a fact or something funny.

I really like to talk about things I know about, like computers, the internet, christianity, creative commons and copyright.

I don’t start conversations. Maybe that’s the problem. I guess I feel I don’t have anything relevent to say that will be interesting. And that’s probably a lie; I’m an interesting person. I am, right? I don’t know. If chicks find out I’m a hard-core geek, I tend to get judged and stereotyped. I don’t look like a stereotype geek, but I certainly can behave like one.

Mum said I needed to boost my confidence. She said I could look at losing some weight and I should do the things I enjoy to make me feel better about myself. I don’t care too much if I have a beergut. And I do do the things I enjoy.

I work. I love to get on a computer and punch out a website. I love to help others with their computer problems. I love to do the things I do well, and I love learning to do them better. Reading about my industry online. Attending conferences. Stuff like that.

How do I boost my confidence in something I suck at? Getting rejected hurts. I feel like I have so much to offer to some special lady. But putting myself on the line only to get burnt really hurts. I work my courage to go over and say hi, and I put effort into it over a few weeks, and then I figure out that she’s probably not interested in me. That’s a bum deal.

But I guess it’s life. The only way to build my confidence up is to take the chance and try talking to a girl.

The first thing I noticed about Brisbane at this time of year is how GOD DAMN HOT the place is. I mean DAMN, this place is freaking stinking hot. I’m sitting here with my shirt unbuttoned, shoeless and sporting my three-quarter shorts, at 8pm at night!

The second thing I noticed about this place is the different bird sounds you hear. They have some pretty random bird sounds here in Australia, and some really weird birds to go along with them. The Ibis, for example.

My Mum lives in South Bank, which is a really nice place. They have the right idea too: to combat the heat, they have countless New Zealand Natural ice cream booths along the promenade along the river. And if that doesn’t do enough to cool you off, there’s a pool near the riverside which is done up like a beach, along with real sand. We popped down there around 3-4pm today and the water was really really warm — like a good bath — but it was still the coolest I’d been that whole day.

At dusk, the fruit bats come out to move around or something — Mum’s apartment is on the 3rd floor, and the bats swoop past the balcony about 10m away! It’s crazy seeing real bats flying around in an urban area!

I haven’t seen much of Brisbane yet, but it’s a really nice place. I’m here for 5 more days. Christmas Day tomorrow – so Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

But seriously, 3am and I want to go to sleep already, dammit. There are security guards here trying their best to get the sirens turned off. Whats New, our landlords, haven’t exactly been helpful in any of this. Oh, and would they fix our elevator for once and for all? -_-; Incompetent.

I’m listening to the Katamari Damacy soundtrack I nabbed off of Macweeny yesterday. It’s quite relaxing, even though the drone of the beeping is still quite loud, even street-side. But it is quieter down here than in my room. And at least I’ve got Cafenet coverage here

If a guy holding a white iBook is found lying down on the street this morning, it’s me. Please don’t steal my laptop.

Oh, and happy birthday, SmileyChris Hopefully I’ll see you later today, if I’m not freezing my toes off.

I mean, taking Eric Meyer for example, hearing the world expert on CSS talk about his field in the morning, meeting him and having a conversation with him after lunch, getting two books he wrote signed by him that night, hearing him talk again the next day, and then go out drinking with him and our new-found buddies and some of us end up at a nightclub in Kings Cross… THIS STUFF JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN! And it wasn’t just Eric either, it was Molly, Tantek, Doug Bowman, John Allsopp, Jeffrey Veen, Derek Featherstone, and so many more! It was so much more than an honour to meet these people; hanging out was a mindjob.

What’s weird at first is that the “big stars” are approchable and friendly in real life, they want to know who you are, because they know you know who they are. This is in comparison to many people in the lime light in other more fame-focused industries (music, movies, but not microcode) who are less likely to give you time of day than have a conversation with you.

As much as this will sound like I’m blowing my own horn or that I’m kissing up, the most humbling thing to discover at the conference was that some of these “big stars” had heard about “the guy who was fundraising through his blog to get to we05” and that when those individuals and I met, they had a suspicsion that I was that person — I didn’t have to tell them. These people knew kinda who I was!

So when I get home and discover that Molly and Tantek have left such generous comments that I have a grin from ear-to-ear, how am I supposed to react?

Really, it all comes down to respect: I could have an unhealthy respect for them bordering on holding them as idols, but one has to remember that they are just regular people. As the famous Bruce Dickenson once said “Easy, guys… I put my pants on just like the rest of you: one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.”

And when I think about it, and as hard as it is for me to get to grips with it right now, in reality, they are my friends and colleagues in this industry. Now to keep those friendships alive! Hey Tantek, I’d be keen to see the photos you took on your Matrix tour…

Mind you, he also said “I got a fever! And the only prescription… is more cowbell!”, so I won’t push that metaphor

UPDATE: I guess the other side of the equation can happen too: molly.com » Moments of Doubt and Glory

I like Sydney. It’s a nice place.

I got up comparatively late today: 8:30ish. I grabbed my windows lappy and my new WE05 messenger bag (all attendees got one) and went walking deeper into town. I passed many many electronics stores, all of which contained the same old crap. Then I spy this tacky looking camera store with neon lights and stuff, and I think what the hey, let’s check it out. I get in there and it’s not half bad. Actually, it’s pretty good: they have Apple stuff.

I had brought ~NZD$2000 with me to Australia, planning to buy a powerbook of some description, but a work payment didn’t come through as planned, so I only had half of the money I needed. But I digress. I had NZD$2000 and there was the opportunity to buy a mactop, like I’ve been planning for a while now. Duty free. Yum.

So I’m looking at this iBook G4 14″ deal and I’m thinking back to seeing Tantek’s laptop and how small that was, and I say to myself “hey, if it’s good enough for Tantek, it’s good enough for me!” So I commit.

The people at CCC Camera House are really friendly I say I’ve only got NZD and the the staff talk among themselves, and eventually come back and say they’ll accept my NZD, eliminating the need for me to go to a money changer. They try to ring it up on their system, but the exchange rate is out of date, and they can’t remember how they are supposed to enter the details so that I get charged the correct amount. But eventually they figure it out, and I leave with my iBook and a Targus laptop folder-style bag, with a mile-wide smile.

I love my Mac.

. . .

Before I came over to Sydney, my Mum recommended I catch a ferry to check out Sydney from a harbour view. So I figured I’d catch the train to the other side of the harbour, find the ferry terminal and catch one back to Darling Harbour, which is within walking distance of Wake Up. Oops.

After figuring out which train I should catch, how to buy a subway ticket, finding the correct platform, and getting on, I miss Milsons Point, my stop. The guard announcing the stops is just mumbling the next stop, and I’m too busy admiring the scenery. So eventually figure out I’ve missed my stop, and I resign myself to stay till the end of the line, seeing more of Sydney than I originally planned.

Sydney is huge. It’s the biggest city I’ve ever been to (but that’s not saying much, being the only city I’ve visited outside of New Zealand).

I get all the way to Hornsby, the end of the line. I hop off to grab some refreshments from the platform stand and get back on the train. I hadn’t seen a guard the whole trip — they don’t check tickets like they do in Wellington, as they have turnstiles at most of the stops. The train departs, and I hop off at Milson’s Point, and travel down the hill to the ferry terminal.

Then it hits me — I’m below the Sydney Harbour Bridge! Out comes the camera. Oh wait, there’s the Opera House — I didn’t know it was there! Snap snap snap. Oh wait, there’s Luna Park! click click click. On the ferry I get, and eventually I get back to Darling Harbour.

I don’t have a map, but that’s OK, I think I’ve got my bearings. I know that Paddy’s Market is between me and Wake Up, and I know some landmarks that will tell me I’ve gone too far in either direction. I find Paddy’s Market, and decide to scout it out. Disappointing is all I can say — so much crap, so many stalls with the same crap. I did find some gems, like a place that sells imitation iPod skins, a place that specialises in socks, and I was very surprised to find a pet store in one corner too!

I fly back to Wellington in about 12 hours, which is too soon. I’d like to explore Sydney some more. I’d like to make some more friends, and grow the ones I just made at the conference.

I’m really looking forward to WE06 — I can’t wait!

After more legendary presentations from Molly, Eric and Derek, I attended the Ajax session by Tim Lucas. I found myself wanting a bit more, but it was still VERY good.

Lunch came around, so I caught a cab to Found Agency. I got to meet Zak, the guy I talked to on the phone just over a week ago. He showed me around his office in Bondi Junction, and gave me a very in-depth insight into the world of SEO and Pay-Per-Click marketing. Basically, there is OMG HUGE money to be made — seeing some of the Google Adsense windows brought it to life. He also described something called A-B Testing: serving up two identical ads going to slightly different convert pages, observing the difference that the slight difference made, and deciding to keep that change. Zak said that click through conversion can be increased phenomenally just by iterating through this every 1000 clickthroughs.

I also learnt that there are three types of “SEO” people: Super Affiliates (those who partner with a company who wants to sell something and enter into a huge referral rate in the hundreds of dollars per customer), Pay-Per-Click marketeers (those who manage their adwords and search terms they appear on) and Hybrid marketeers (those who do both).

I also learnt that Google doesn’t really like what some Super Affiliates are doing sometimes, and that the Super Affiliates are listening to what Google has to say, including the rel="nofollow" microformat. It becomes obvious to me that the ones comment-spamming blogs don’t really know what they are doing; shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to Google.

I spent so long talking to Zak that I was late for the 2:15pm sessions. I really wanted to see Cameron Adams’ Javascript and the DOM session too. Oh well, there’s always the podcasts.

Thank goodness I made it back in time to catch Tantek’s Microformats session — fascinating stuff. I guess I already knew about XFN and rel=”nofollow” but I didn’t know that these were called microformats. Yay for learning!

Then Jeffrey Veen got up and did yet another PHENOMENAL session giving us all the boost we needed to go back to our jobs and do this stuff we’ve been learning about. I’m totally pumped. I’m gonna go out back and kick that tree.

For some reason, because I was that-guy-who-did-the-blog-donation-box-to-get-to-WE05, I was given a collectable WE05 belt pouch for a digital camera or iPod or the like. Sweet! Thanks people!

The WE05 afterparty was at The Pumphouse in Darling Harbour. Putting my Flickrazzi hat on, I caught some hilarious moments of the presenters on NVRAM and have put them up on Flickr for all to enjoy, namely Doug Bowman dancing, Eric, John Allsopp and Mark Harris doing the WWW, Derek Featherstone getting drawn into a pint, Tantek searching for Wifi at a dance club, and Eric giving Doug in his patented “CSS Brace”

Tantek tells me that I can probably go find many of the places where scenes from The Matrix were filmed here in Sydney; something I was hoping to do, but didn’t realise actually how easy it will be — 10 minutes of Google Searching apparently… hmm…

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Sydney. Will I be back for WE06? Heck yes!

Oh, and don’t forget to keep the middle of May 2006 free in your calendars — a web conference in New Zealand is being planned, and you will highly desire coming along… but more on that later…

I haven’t gone far from Central Station in Sydney, but the fast food in Australia is of par standard. It’s nothing special, but it’s certainly edible. The food at the conference is great.

I uploaded the best photos I had from the conference onto Flickr last night via Telstra wifi from the comfort of my 6-share. My favorite has got to be Tantek and Eric Meyer staring each other down

There was an emergency evacuation yesterday. Apparently it’s the first almost-live podcast recording of a building evacuation! One of the guys from the conference was telling me he got a hilarious pic of Eric Meyer crouching outside the venue with his laptop out on his knees trying to get on Wifi! [photo]— can’t wait to see that on Flickr! Check out all the we05 photos on Flickr

All the talks yesterday were awesome. I especially liked Jeffrey Veen’s presentation on usability, Kelly Goto’s presentation on workflow in the agency, and Douglas Bowman’s visionary presentation reminding us that it’s only been 10 years and our art will most definetely look completly different in 10 years.

I’m really looking forward to the AJAX session, as well as Cameron Adams’ Javascript & DOM session. Tantek’s microformats session should be very interesting too.

I’m off to meet Found Agency today too. Probably around lunch time. We’ll see.

CJ and I did the duty free store – there was hardly anything. CJ tells me to wait till I see Sydneyâ€s duty free area – much better a selection. That said, Iâ€ve never seen such a big bottle of Baileys or such a big bar of Toblerone in my life.

Iâ€m listening to the Daily Source Code on my iPod. I really like listening to podcasts – they fill time so well, and there is always something interesting to listen to. IT Conversations especially.

If you canâ€t tell, Iâ€m rambling. I try to blog when I have something interesting to say, but today, Iâ€m blogging for the sake of blogging. An almost-live thought-dump if you like, seeing as Iâ€m not posting this till I get onto some sort of internet connection.

Iâ€ve told a few people that I used to have this recurring dream that Iâ€d be flying to somewhere in the world, and Iâ€d get to the other country, get to customs and Iâ€d forgotten my passport; Iâ€d left it on my desk at home. Of course, thatâ€s not possible, because you need to show your passport before you get into the international departure lounge, but I was pretty scared that Iâ€d forget something pretty important by the time I got to Australia.

Iâ€m pretty excited about getting to Sydney. The flight is just a necessary boredom between here and there, even though Iâ€ve never left New Zealand before; yes, this is the first time in my life.

I hope I can get a bed at wakeup tonight. The place looks pretty trendy from the website, but if I get there about 8pm on a Wednesday night, Iâ€m concerned that they wonâ€t be able to put me up.

. . .

So here I am on the Airbus A320 to Sydney. I don’t know what time it is, because I don’t know what time zone I’m in right now, and I my cellphone is off. (EDIT: When I wrote this, I didn’t think to look at the time on my laptop.) Iâ€m in row 5 behind, the 2nd row from the front of the main cabin, behind Business Class. I canâ€t recommend this seat, because the front row of business is equipped with bassinets for baby travel, and thereâ€s three babies traveling with us today. After 3.25 hours of this I can imagine Iâ€ll be all “Argh! SHUT IT OFF SHUT IT OFF!”

Itâ€s lovely above the clouds. I wish I could tell you how high we are.

OK, on goes the podcasts – damn babies.

11:33
So I got into Sydney about 5:30. I say 5:30 because there was a HUGE line at customs. But once we got into Sydney proper, we drove off to the centre of town to the Mercure where CJ was staying. The bellhop at the Mercure gave me bum directions to Wake Up, and I ended up walking around nearly the entire railway station. Man they have some really long pedestrian subways in Sydney; so long infact that in this particular subway there were two buskers who werenâ€t within earshot of each other.

So eventually after asking some random people where this place was I found it. Itâ€s a really nice place – trendy, and really busy. Iâ€m in a six-share with five other girls.

So I went to wake upâ€s bar “Side Bar” – a fitting name for a guy whoâ€s a web developer. I ordered the special of the day (Steak & Kidney Pie + a pint – WTF, I hate kidney!) and grabbed a seat with some randoms. Backpackers are friendly people, always ready to strike up a conversation – I guess this is of necessity, as people donâ€t know anyone, and are looking for people to hang out with. I met two people from the US, one from Denmark and one from France.

Right now Iâ€m lying on my bed typing on the laptop. Itâ€s hard to keep my head up, especially with all the beer I just consumed. I should save this and go to sleep. BTW, Iâ€m typing all this into Word, as thereâ€s no public wifi available from this room.

Actually, there is, but itâ€s pay wifi, so I went and hunted down a AUD$20 Telstra PhoneAway card. So Iâ€ll post this now and hit the sack.

No photos as yet. Will take photos at the conference tomorrow

Tonight, after a nice steak at the birthday party of my friend Matthew, he and his friends were gonna go and do some Karaoke. I was sceptical, as you can understand — I am the first to say “hell no” when it comes to karaoke. However, they mentioned that they were going to this place in Manners Mall — upstairs. There is only two bars on Manners, Hoops, a hip-hop bar on the ground floor, and the Pool Bar, which is a pool hall. Apparently, we weren’t going to either of those places. I was intrigued; I tagged along keeping an open mind.

Up the escalators in the Rock Shop Plaza and we reach the top floor just outside the Pool Bar. We don’t go in, but a couple of people from the group go up to “negotiate” our entry into “Oops! Karaoke”, a small complex of over 8 of what I could best describe as ‘karaoke booths’.

The seven of us are admitted and shown to a booth. The booth has 2 comfy couches, a table littered with vinyl covered books, a Korean remote control outclassing most label makers, two microphones connected by cables to a machine in the wall, which is also connected to 4 TVs in the wall.

Before I realise what is happening, a wig, a cowboy hat, and some tamborines are procured from the depths of the couches, and the lights dim and music begins. Two of the people have picked a song and are getting right into it, no waiting. I’m handed one of the vinyl books and told that the blue pages in this book are songs in English and advised to find a song I know and enter the code on the remote. I start flicking through the book, simultaneously listening to my new found Asian friends sing songs. (incidently, I’m the only non-asian in attendance) I’m sitting next to the birthday celebrant, who I know pretty well, and he’s singing a song I know REALLY well. He finishes a verse and hands me the mic. Everyone present encourages me to sing, so I do. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the songs we sang, but they were English pop songs that you’d probably know.

I get right into it, singing my best. When I’m done, a score comes up on the screen — 94. I guess it’s out of 100, because the birthday boy says that I did awesomely well. Well I’m not sure, but compared to one of the guys sitting across from me, I’m definitely doing okay

I proceed to find songs I know in the book, and sing along with the songs that others have picked that I know the tune to, singing into the microphone if it’s passed to me. I’m having a ball! But I hate karaoke!? This isn’t the same as in karaoke bars; This isn’t embarrassing; this is having fun with your friends! W00t! I pick a song, and when it comes up, my friends join in with me!

In the wall, the little karaoke machine is responding to the remote. You look up a song in the book and punch the number of the song into the remote, and press the big yellow “reserve” button. The number you punch appears on the TVs, with the title of the song in English and Korean next to it. The number and title of the next song up are along the screen. When one song ends, the next song begins.

Quickly I realise that the machine is quite simple: it is basically a library of MIDI files, with a loop of irrelevant video behind the lyrics. I spot a laminated sheet on the table that translates the Korean remote: not only does the remote program which songs we want to sing next, but the remote can change the speed of the music, change the key that the song is in, change the volume of the music, the volume of the microphones, the amount of echo in the microphones, and even a button to unleash canned applause, the latter of which I managed to activate after a rather good rendition of “My Heart will go On – Celine Dion”; a song easily hammed, but in this case, well deserved of an automated applause

The unit in the wall has a LED readout, one for the number of the song you’d punch in, but another for how many minutes we had left to sing. It started at ~70 minutes. At the end, we were having a really good time, and it let us sing our last song, then we left.

Would I do this kind of Karaoke again? You betcha. Making a fool of yourself in front of people you know, who are also making fools of themselves, is the best thing on earth. The fact that you’re doing your best to sing along to songs everyone already knows becomes hilarious and fun. Ask me 4 hours earlier if I’d have this much fun singing Karaoke and I’d have told you to get out of my face.

My name is Brett Taylor, and I like to sing karaoke with my friends.

My Aunty and Uncle were in town for (Rosie’s Mum) Leslie’s 70th birthday party the next day. My cousins Abby and Sam were there too — man they’ve grown and look so different! Abby is now married(?) and has had two kids, one of which was adopted out, but they were both there. My goodness, they look so much like the younger Abby I remember.

I also talked to Leslie herself, and she told me about her trip around South America, and off hand she mentioned going to Easter Island, so I asked her a bit about that… she was only there for two days, but she saw most of the island — remembering that you can probably bike around the island in less than a day.

Mum was crashing at my place, so before we went to bed, we tried to watch Napolean Dynamite, but my computer was having issues and we were both tired; Mum doubly so after a 4 hour drive from Napier.

The next day was Church, and after an ordeal missing late buses back into town, I made it back in time to go to Leslie’s 70th party. It was at the Kingsgate Hotel in Oriental Bay, which is a great venue! After eating many club sandwiches, mini-croissants and drinking glasses of orange juice, talking to the whanau, we got to hear speeches from Leslie’s children telling the attendees about Leslies life. It was really interesting — she used to be in the Lighthouse service, which involved living in and running lighthouses for 18 months at a time. Fascinating!

After the party, Stuart, Mum and myself returned to my place where we relaxed, then we fetched some supplies including popcorn, beer and food for dinner, and Mum cooked up a feast of Potato, Cauliflower and cheese sauce and Porterhouse Steak — YUMMM. Then we retired and watched Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie, drinking beers and eating microwave popcorn. Mum had bought a few fruit-and-nut chocolate bars and said you gotta try this: Put a chunk of the chocolate in your mouth, then grab a small handful of popcorn and put that in there too. I did, and it was great! The chocolate melts from the heat of the popcorn and it tastes great

Monday morning I wake up and Mum and Stuart are buzzing the apartment, so I quickly get dressed and we all go to Fidel’s for breakfast. They had a FIFTEEN PERCENT SURCHARGE for a public holiday! SCREW THAT! Well, we ended up ordering and paying for the meal before we realised there was a surcharge, and the food was REALLY GOOD… and we had a good time, so that was good

After that we walked to Te Papa where Mum wanted to check out the Holbein to Hockney exhibition of pictures from the Royal Collection, which featured some pieces from Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, along with many others. I think the other Ninja Turtle was in there too

After that, Mum was on her way back to the Hawkes Bay and we said our farewells. Overall it was good sharing the city with Mum, and having a real good time. Love you lots Mum!

Oh, and I scored a full copy of Duke Nukem 3D from the Gamesman for NZD$1.00… pity I can’t get it to run in any screen size bigger than 320×240 under Windows XP. I tried a few HOWTOs but they didn’t help

It’s gonna cost me some serious coinage… admission is AU$700, and hopefully work will pay for some of that, but I still gotta get airfares, departure tax, accomodation, spending money. All up I’m probably gonna have to get about NZD$1500 from somewhere, which probably means saving it.

I’ve never attempted to save this much money before, so it should be a good lesson for me. It’s also my first time overseas — I don’t even have a passport! I kinda want a laptop to take too… cybercafes suck.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get some sponsorship. Maybe some of my fellow attendee out there want to help me out? So I’ve put a Paypal button on the main page. But if you want to donate another way, let me know!

I intend to stay at the Sydney Railway Square YHA Wake Up!, which is only 5 minutes away from the WE05 venue. It’s cheaper if you bunk in a same-sex-room with 4 or 8 other buddies, but I don’t have any same-sex buddies who will be attending yet… If you’re going to WE05 on the cheap, contact me and we’ll hook up Of course, if someone wants to billet me, that’d be even better

Update: As with any good donation drive, you need to give something in return. So if you donate more than NZD$5 (read: more than USD$4.00) then I’ll post you a CD-R with loads of legal Creative Commons MP3s on it, just to say thanks! I might even throw some mashups on there too Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you your CD

Update: Thanks to my good pal Andrew Morrison and my good friend CJ, combined they’ve donated NZD$150

Update: Cheers GuruBob for another NZD$25! Someone get that man a pie!

Update: HUGE THANKS to my new employer, 3months.com for pledging NZD$800!

Update: A big TY to Jenny Crumiller for the donation of USD$40! (~NZD$58.36)

Update: A big w00ta to Scott Buffington who donated USD$20 (~NZD$29.20)! Big Ups!

Update: Two updates today: USD$20 (~NZD$29.20) from Smikwily and USD$5 (~NZD$7.25) from David Pickett: Cheers you guys!

Update: Michael DiStefano donated a sweet USD$4 (~NZD$5.80) — Cheers Michael!

Took some photos of the Cable Car and some things in the Botanic Garden near the top. The Cable Car driver was nice enough to let me take a photo of the control panel So many buttons!

I found this on Manners Mall. It’s part of a display called Sugarcube, which consists of a wooden cube with sugar sachets stapled to it. Each sugar sachet was drawn on by someone in a Cuba St cafe. The cube is locked in a transparent perspex display, protected from the elements.

I saw this photo, immediately thought of my friend Matt, snapped it, uploaded it to Flickr, then sent the url to Tuatha who confirmed that it was indeed doodled by Matt because Tuatha was there when Matt drew it.

Update: Taniwha took more photos of Sugarcube

The Red Panda Encounter at Wellington Zoo cost us NZD$60 each, and was worth every cent We spent what seemed like ages in the enclosure with the red pandas, along with the really helpful keeper who was telling us nearly everything there is to know about these cute critters. They’re an endangered species, and there is an international breeding program going on. What was really interesting was that the breeding program is administrated, and the decisions for which animals get to breed together is influenced heavily by DNA sampling and trying to keep genetic variance in the population… wow…

It was quite strange, as the first red panda that came up to us would come and eat some food, then climb back into the tree and then climb back down and eat some more. And it was eating the food right out of our hands!

Wellington Zoo has (I believe) five Red Pandas, all of which are extremely cute and cuddly. That said, we didn’t get to cuddle them Actually, towards the end, Matthew asked if we could pet them, and the keeper said sure, if they’ll let you. I tried, but they kinda shy away a little. They are quite timid and secretive creatures. Apparently they don’t have much of a personality, when compared to other mammals like cats, dogs or chimps.

Anyway, a stackload of photos were taken. Check them out, and feel free to leave comments

• GodCast.org — Creative Commons licenced podcasts with christian content, especially The Living Word and Rev Tim’s Podcast
• Flickr — Finding cool photos that get your creative juices flowing has never been so easy, and never so fun!
• Picasa — Makes performing simple photo improvements fast and easy… if only it would integrate with Flickr…
• Walking around Wellington — especially to places I’ve never walked, such as the Interisland Ferry Terminal. I’m doing the 10,000 step program, so reaching 10,000 steps before I go to bed is a real motivator… and taking the new camera makes it fun too … walking to the ferry terminal that day got me up above 20,000 steps for the first time!
• Getting Things Done — or more specifically the methodology outlined in the book Getting Things Done (slashdot review)… being organised and completing tasks is a motivator!

I made my way out to Wellington Airport this evening to meet one Andrew Kepple, also known as TmsT, one of the more well known animutationeers. He’s known best for the “Jesus H. Christ vs Colin Mochrie” Animutation series (‘French Erotic Film’ and the rest of the series).

So yeah, I waited at Gate 13 for him holding my sign:

C. MOCHRIE
A. KEPPLE
N. CICIEREGA

which he liked We exchanged gifts (yay! I got rare TmsT vids!) talked for a moment or two, took some photos and parted ways. It was quick and succinct, but you can blame Air New Zealand for demanding check-in times. He said will be posting on his site tonight, so be sure to watch it for more hilarity

I hope to see more of this elusive guy around meatspace in the future… as Strong Bad would say “Man — so cool!” but without the creepy-combover.

Update: Oh, so after meeting TmsT, I took a walk and took some more pictures. My faves are on my Flickr.

Sunday I got up, gave Dad a box of chocolates for Fathers Day. We got dressed and went to find some geocaches. I had loaded the latest set of co-ordinates on my eTrex Friday morning, and printed out the cache sheets at work on Friday before I left, but I had left the sheets at work, so we tried to wing it. We tried to find GC39AF first; Dad thought it might be at Forest Lakes but when we got there, it was still 3km away; turns out it was on the beach. So we drove up to Levin to find a cybercafe – no luck So we drove back to home in Otaki and got my bags. Then we decided to hide a microcache out near Otaki Forks. Have fun finding that one, we had fun placing it.

After that we decided to drive me back to Paraparaumu so I could catch the train back home that afternoon. But on the way, I saw that we were about a kilometer away from a cache or two in Waikanae, and did we want to try and wing it without the cache sheet…? We decided to give GCC747 a shot. After driving around in suburbia down some cul-de-sacs we realised it was on the other side of these houses. Sarah spotted an alleyway and Dad and I got out to find it. At the end of the alleyway we discovered that the Waikanae River was there, and my fears were that the cache was 500 metres down the river, on the other side! Well, we walked 500 metres down the river and got within 40 metres of the cache and lo, the arrow pointed across the river. We turn back and head for the car. Next we tried GCC056, got to the spot the GPS thought it was, and it pointed to the middle of a Toetoe plant, aka Cutty Grass – ie, it cuts you if you walk through it. After searching for 5 minutes, we couldn’t find it – I don’t think we had the right location.

So we go get some fish and chips, eat it at Lindale, and decided to head to Paraparaumu and drive around the water front. We drove through Raumati Beach shops and lo, there was a book exchange with hi-speed internet access. We went in, printed out the cache sheet for GC38E at Queen Elizabeth Park. Drove to within 100 metres of it, got out, and walked down the tramway like the sheet said, and the GPS told us to stop and go into the bushes. We climbed a small knoll and my Dad spotted it! We found it! YAY! Dad was pretty chuffed, as after all these non-successes, he had proof that Geocaching is a real sport!

I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend… how was yours?