So I haven't commented on the ongoing battle between Mr Mike Rowe, his domain MikeRoweSoft and Mr Bill Gates and his company MicRoSoft because I haven't. It has been sorted out now with young Mike getting such things as an Xbox and other things.
What I will comment upon is the awsomeness that is auctioning off the communications from Microsoft. That is awsome, well it is awsome now that the bidding is up over 5,000 USD. That is cool.
Fe demands that I acknowledge her skills at hitting penguins. She is now tied first equal with Ben. (Dave points for trying is .1 away from the magic 323.5)
The drift table (via Gizmodo) is very odd. Very.
Party tomorrow night. Be there or suck.
Well even more of a loser. However, speciffically I really meant, what have I done. The horror of the blog has spread like one of those diseases that spread. And it ain't pretty. Soma got on board the truth trolley, and he brought his own unique version of psycho to the planet. Surly Searle put the story back in hiSTORY and then came Claire and what really should be referred to as "the horror." Claire and Dave - Two people blogging in the same flat, and both with a desire to kill the non blogging usurper within their abode. Also Claire has got us listed like a bunch of bank managers.
Sweet.
There is an ad for instant abs on both TV3 and TV4. At the same time. Yet they are not in sync. No more drugs for that man.
Shout outs to our lost and lonely OE contingent. Dan "I'll go missing my way" and Hamish "We'll drink our way out!" This buds for you boys. (Coke may or may not be (but it will, so don't worry) will be used instead)
As Will pointed out to me, this is a pretty crappy death:
Boston's Great Molasses Flood, which killed 21 people and injured 150...
...on January 15, 1919, a gigantic steel vat exploded, spewing 2.3 million gallons of molten molasses. Thirty-foot waves of gooey liquid plowed through the streets, catching men, women, horses and vermin in its sticky flow, crushing freight cars, wagons and automobiles and reducing entire buildings to broken planks of wood.
Who knew. Also who knew that molasses was used to make ammo. Moving on....
The coolest bit of text culled from my allegged thesis:
The musical world did not have a governmentally funded research organisation and a swathe of MIT graduates, but it did have Herbie Hancock – jazz pianist. Hancock drew upon on his degree in electrical engineering and “customized connections for his various synthesizers so they would work in concert.” (Vaidhyanathan, 150) His actions inspired the development of the Musical Instrumental Digital Interface (MIDI) standard; MIDI which is an open compatibility protocol capable of instructing a musical device on “the duration of a note, the shape and pitch of a sound and its volume.” (Vaidhyanathan, 150)...
Oh well.
Holy freaking crap. This is a mighty mighty mighty looking graphics card. And it is mighty too, it isn't just pretty looking. MIGHTY.
Also, it is this kind of shit that makes me want to photograph stuff. Oh yeah. Mighty.
In other mighty deeds, let us give props to young MCS. For she (somehow) has managed to get band by a certain Cyber Patrol net nanny program thingo. Which is I think rather excellent. So now we can all go slag Dan off there, for he'll never know. Mwhahahaha. Hmmm.
Have been fighting a guerilla war with comment spam, OK more of a get it, look at it, wonder "what the hell?!" and delete it kind of war, but it has started to increase and reached irritating level rather quickly. After reading up on some stuff have gone with the option of "getting Mog to fix it" which he has done by getting comments to automatically close after 14 days. Which should solve the problem because all comment spam has occured well after two weeks from posting. Probably after google has next spidered past.
A new comment has been posted on your blog Here Be Dragons, on entry #93
(Go West).
http://24fridays.com/mt/archives/000093.htmlIP Address: 62.213.67.122
Name: Cesare/Bartnicki NikkiEmail Address: draime_2000@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.pills-for-penis.comComments:
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Yeah. Whatever.
Many moons late, Mike Jasper has a new post up, which as usual is cool.
If I was the richest person on the planet, I would damn well have people calling me Sir whether I was "entitled" to or not. But that's just me.
Actually, it would probably be a whole lot cooler than simply "sir."
We saw Enter The Jungle. It certainly is not good, but it was watched. And Christopher Walken is cool. As Ben said, The Rock is certainly a better actor than many previous action stars, and Sean William Scott seemed to act. Ben and I watched American Pie 3 last week and SWS (buh) certainly acted in that. They made stifler that much more of an ass, but he actually acted it well. And when you compare it to what he is like in real life it is pretty cool. And by the way, American Pie 3 is funny. It also sucks really hard, and has some incredibly horrible scenes, but also some very very funny ones.
But why is it called "The Rundown" in American and "Enter the Jungle" EVERYWHERE else? Strange.
Also, Van Helsing is going to be cool. Hugh Jackman, and Kate Beckinsdale, crossbows and spinny disc thingies. Cool. Go whore off apple for the trailer.
Oh, and the trailer for Kill Bill Vol 2 sure does suck. I'm sure it is all arty and harking back to movies from the "golden age" of film. But you know, it sure does suck. The first one (trailer) ruled, the second does not. Although I have high-ish hopes for the film itself.
Enough.
Tarkwyn Snr,
Tark Towers,
Tarkistan.
Dear You,
I recently read in the local gossip colum that you and yours were in dire need of some burl. Specifficaly in the form of burly "men".
Unfortunately our finest burl practitioner has recently taken an extended vacation, and is unavailable for operational activities.
However we do still have a number of excellent specimens available for rent or purchase.
We are all certainly strongly and heavily built, if by that you mean quality of construction rather than strength of arm. We are however frank and direct. This might not be your desired requirement, and if not, I'm sorry you are out of luck.
This is rather unimportant given how we whore for food. Right slutty we are if I do say so myself.
By the way, as proof of my burliness, my record for penguin bashing is 321. (Verified by Claire). Batarup!
Normally my Nokia 3310 gets no complaints from me. It is not the ultimate phone I would buy if I had the chance, but it is good enough. (Bar fitting in Sara's Car Kit) But recently I noticed that Nic's new flat was not ocming up on caller ID. His number wasn't blocked, it is just that the phone would display his number instead on his name. Checked it was in my phone book, checked the number was right.
Pondered.
Concluded that even though my phone book was not full (not sure how many I had, but it never stopped me adding more, and it his number was still working to dial to from my phone book) some aspect of the Caller ID function possibly was full.
Suck.
Deleted a bunch of numbers I no longer call (like the mighty Chataeu) and found that Otara now does work on Caller ID. This is lame. I can't imagine why the Caller ID would not just work off of the phone book.
It is not conclusive proof, there could be something else oging on. But I doubt it.
Also, in other Nokia news. I'm pleased to discover that the stupid rotary style button placement of one model of their phones has been discontinued. And they have put the buttons back where they should be. Was very silly.
Also interesting to see Nokia following one of Sony Ericsson design ideas and installing a little command stick whatsit.
This guy is a guy thats GOTS TO GET PAID. (Warwick, Ben & I know what I'm talking about, but I can't find the link. Will continue looking)
Anyway, This guy, being Trevor Blackwell has built himself a Segway presumably not tm. Good job I say.
Right. WTF.
I'm in love with power books. I probably won't buy one, for although I'm not raving anti Mac, I do like playing games.
Anyway.
Wang super ultra power book in the states cost 2,999.00 USD, which if we convert to NZD at 0.6 (yay) gets us to 4,9998.33. OK, more than I'm willing to pay, but alright alirght. MagnumMac in CHCH sells this beastie for 5,999 NZD. PLUS GST. Plus GST? WTF this is already $1,000 more than it would cost me in America, and I you don't even have the excuse of having to add GST to it.
Bastards, you'll all suffer. What do they do? Send a MagnumMac on a return flight to LA to pick one up? Where does $1000 come from. Bollocks.
On the other hand, if they are sending people to LA to pick up laptops, I so want that job.
RANT!
All right, this is seriously cool. I have always thought that credit cards were a ridiculous and insecure form of payment. They just make no sense. I have bought airline tickets with my dads, with his knowledge, but the people selling me the tickets certainly did not know that. It even happened to Jed after he arrived in Canada, which I want to know more about.
This is a cool solution:
credit card companies in Eastern Europe have set up a system in which cardholders are automatically sent a text messages confirming every transaction, so that if anyone makes an unauthorized purchase you'll be alerted instantaneously.
Yeah. I like it.
Also, there is an ad on at the moment for Primo and it shows a game show where the contestants are shown a photo of a scantily clad girl on the beach. Behind her is a big chicken. They return to show and the host asks the contestants what was behind the girl. The three male "youths" look at each other, and generally have no idea. (For the slow, this is because they were checking out the chick)
For the record I knew it was a chicken (possibly a rooster) and Sara had no idea.
Aha.
Reason someone needs to learn to drive #46, so that he may scream GEEK and be heard by all.
And,
Unique aerial photographs of the some of the key events of the Second World War are to be made available for the first time over the internet.
The entire archive of more than five million aerial reconnaissance photographs, shot by the RAF over Western Europe during the conflict, is going online from Monday.
Check them out at evidenceincamera.co.uk. Some of them are very cool.
All hail Slashdot for todays babble.
Edited the next day, per Torshin Brand Comments...
I have for a long time thought that the ability of digital cameras to record short videos (usually with sound, but sometimes without) was rather lame. I just thought, yes well that is all well and good, but really I don't see the point. And I worried that it might detract from other capabilities of the camera. Well. Well. Well, I don't think that anymore. Em recently sent out a short clip of her being a mad fool in Times Square, and it ruled. A photo would have given us Em in Times Square, but this short video did the job significantly better. It was very cool, so I've changed my mind on the issue. Just so you know.
A rant, that surely is worthy of hard core massive ranting.
The West Wing is available on DVD. Good, good for me, good for you. So we see it in the shop four DVDs for around $80 dollars, and we think this is not bad. Then we notice that it is only half a season. Half a season for $80? James has seen it too, even in far off Canberra he has contemplated this phenomena. And we find it to suck. So we don't buy it. Well we don't buy it for a number of reasons, but this is definitly one of them. But it gets worse.
It gets worse because Torshin got it into his mind to get it imported from the states, and what does he find? He finds that whole series is available in one package. WTF? Double sided DVDs, oh yes. So the entire season fits on fourd DVDs rather than on what NZ and Australia would attempt to foist, on EIGHT DVDs. Which technically isn't so bad. Who reall cares if it is two sets of four or one set of eight.
Me. Why? Well because Torshin paid only $80 $74! for the entire season, (including P&P to AUS) whereas we would have to pay $160 for the entire season. BOLLOCKS to that. (These are all in NZ dollars) I will certainly be writing a letter to whoever it is that is importing or distributing the West Wing in New Zealand (and Australia) because it is beyond crappy that we have to pay twice as much as Americans for this show. It is crappy and silly. What's more, the Zone One DVD has different (and better) special features compared to the Zone four special features.
CROCK! CROCK. So, get thee to Amazon.com.
And now catharsis.
Last week, I was running around doing errands and sorting out the universe, and my last errand before heading to a quick game of Abbey, was to Blockbuster Papanui for DVD returning. I was heading there from Mum and Dad's and thus ended up heading down Matsons Ave towards Harewood Rd. I went to turn right, but there was some traffic. So I waited. Traffic passed, and I went to go. However some asshat who was on my left, turning right onto Matsons Ave from Harewood Rd, thought he would go as well. I watched as he drove across the bow of Ute power, and I toot toot tooted on my horn. He exclaimed, and swerved, before seeing what was going on (he didn't seem to have noticed I was moving) and realligned himself with the road.
His attitude changed from worry, to anger, and he swore at me.
Unusually for 2230 at night both our windows (his and mine) were down, as it was (as you'll recall) stinking hot. So I heard his complaints. To which I retoted.
"RIGHT OF WAY... BITCH!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Damn it felt excellent to scream that out the window. Suck it up ass hat. I'm not on a give way. In New Zealand we GIVE WAY TO THE RIGHT. You were on my left. So no giving way to you, fucker.
Ah, it felt good.
Fuck I wish I could play the drums.
I spasm about on big epic drum parts, and I wish I could play them. I also imagine that any drummer would have hysterics were they ever to witness said spams.
This is unrelated.
It is one month till one wedding, and less than one till another. Rock.
Teena and James came and took Ben and I away from the Xbox and Panzer Dragoon Orta, which we had accquired at Dan's insistence.
They took us to the sign of the Kiwi for breakfast of icecream. Which is possibly the breakfast of champions, but more likely it is not. Photos were taken. Then the long way was taken, from there to Brighton (new) and breakfast/lunch/proper was had at silly cafe "on" the pier. I think they are OK but over priced, but that is me. Then to QE2 for mini golf action.
I was the winner on the day, and infact I'm still the winner now. J and T put in a good game, whilst Ben holed out, after falling into the Tin Cup mindset that forced him to try and be sneaky. Which he failed to be.
To Si's for a BBQ and goodness.
Saturday saw me watching cricket. Which was unusual, although technically I was reading an illustrated guide to Patrick O'Briens world, and cricket just happened to be on, which is OK. I don't mind watching replays on TV, not even of cricket.
Went to Mary and Charles' for Mystery of the Abbey action. Was the winner, bar my points being less than Mary's. Got the right fellow, but messed it up, and let her sneak home. Moral victory definitely in my court.
Sunday saw stupid missions for French doors. However French doors themselves are good, and now in garage awaiting wall smashing builders.
Then soccer. Which was hot.
Then back once again to Mary and Charles' for Princes of Florence, brought back to us by James. And pizza. And pie. And me winning. Mwhahahahaha. I was truely a great prince of ancient Florence.
Then to Will's for more Abbey action. Will's homecourt advantage came through, and so then home.
Firstly, a cool quote from Bruce Sterling (who is cool) (found on BoingBoing) about settling Mars.
I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live. It's ugly, it's inhospitable and there's no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it's so hard to reach.
Yeah. Maybe Dune was a Gobi Desert Opera? Well, no.
Of iPODs and MiniDiscs
Well, I guess if I was a themed site, then some of you might care, but I'm not, well I am, but that theme is me, and therefore somewhat (alright) a lot ecclectic. My point is that, only really me, and a few others will care at all about the following, which is a short rant about the new iPODs and the new MiniDisc format. Nonetheless, I'm on it.
Ah, the iPOD. I wants one. But as I have bitched about before, I want one with more than eight hours battery life. So I was interested in the release of a new iPOD, which was rumoured to be a smaller version of the product. So, on Jan 6 the iPOD mini was shown to the world and there was some rejoicing.
iPODs are cool, and this one is smaller than the original which is good. But interestingly it is not much smaller than the original. The specs page is the place to check them out side by side. Yes it is smaller, and yes it is lighter, but not much. And at the cost of how many songs? A lot of songs.
At 128 AACs the 4GB mini only manages 1000 songs while the only slightly larger and heavier bigh brother at 40GB can hold 10,000. This is significant.
OK 1000 songs is still a lot, and the beastie 2/3 of the volume of the big one....
BUT Damnit I wanted longer battery life. The truth is I'm not really too worried about the size of the collection, once it is over 2 gigs I'm fine with changing my collection at my computer, but I want the battery to last 24 hours. Or maybe even 18, but I WANT more than eight. Eight is a work day. If I was someone that worked, I couldn't even wear it to work on the public transport of choice, work all day listening to it, and then return home without it going flat. And that sucks. Also, if I was travelling around somewhere, eight hours is just not enough. I couldn't fly from here to LA without it going flat, infact, here to anywhere past north Australia would be right out. So my real bitch is that they didn't up the battery life. Admittedly in going to a smaller version there wasn't much hope of that, but I was there all about longer battery life. (The Belkin addon is suxor in that it doesn't recharge, so sucks)
I'll still be buying one of them, probably the big one, I don't run anywhere so the weight should bother me at all. The mini (note no capital - wank) is only $50 cheaper than the 15gig model which is stange, and I think they would have done better to have it $100 below the other model, but I do see their point that it is only $50 more than crappy little 256Mb flash devices, so maybe they can do it.
It comes in colours. More photos.
/whinge
Now onto MiniDiscs. Si, and Slashdot both pointed me to the release of a more power MiniDisc by Sony. Yes, with even more power than the not so old Long Play (MD-LP).
According to the BEEB! the new discs (Hi-MD) will hold one gig and will be able to act as external drives for computers.
Which is good, becasue for a long time I have wondered why there weren't any MD disc drives. Seemed like a good idea to me. Apparently they did exist, but there weren't many of them.
One gig is a good size too, could be user as a floppy, and is way cheaper (7 USD) than equivalent sizes for flash memory, but then again is way crappier than the few cents you pay for CDs. However it is scratch "proof" and is probably faster for rewriting or deleting.
But anyway, back to the sounds.
The problems of minidiscs.
They don't have an optical out, only an optical in. This means that although you can record onto minidiscs digitally you can't read from them digitally. Which sucks. - Hmmm, it is possible that component devices like Si's might have an optical out, but I'm pretty sure they don't. This is poor, and reduces the value of the product for serious users. Not much good getting a really good recording onto a minidisc if you can't do anything with it.
What is more, MiniDiscs and their stupid ATRAC format (which is lossy, and which everything you copy onto the disc is converted into (GAY!)) also use Sony's wonderfully named "magicgate" technology. Mmmm magic. From the spec pdf, and some comment on Slashdot as well. :
4) Copyright Protection Technology
To prevent an illegal copying of digital content, "Hi-MD" incorporates OpenMG and MagicGate technology, already adopted in Memory Stick and Net MD for content management to ensure that music content stored on a "Hi-MD" disc will be encrypted. "Hi-MD" also conforms to the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS).
Well that is just dandy. This crappy system - especially dirty SCMS - can and does restrict what you can do with all music placed on the minidisc. Without getting into any debate on whether or not it is right for this to occur for copyrighted music, let us consider the situation for non copyrighted music.
Say a recording of me ranting about this. If I was to record this on my PC, and then copy it onto my new Hi-MD minidisc player, that would be fine, but then if I tried to take it off that MD to say my friends computer it would get all upset and angsty and not let me. You see it would think I was making a nasty evil piratical copy of something, which it deems I should not do. It does not know, that I can do whatever the hell I want with that file for it belongs to me. It just stops me.
So if I was a band wanting to do stuff with my music that I recorded, well then I would be shit out of luck.
So sucks to it.
(They are very pretty though)
I have ranted too much about this. Too much I say.
Righto. For any of you who have problems writing posts and then losing them, by following a link, or closing the window or making some mistake which deletes your post as happens sometimes, because you are stuck in a web browser, then get thee to a nunnery. Or in this case Brazil and the good people at w.bloggar. It is a nice little program that allows you to post straight from the application without risking browser nastiness. It is cool for it can post to many many systems, importantly to us MT and Blogger (oh, and icky livejournal, if for some mad unknown reason you decide to make with the livejournal horrors.) Explanation for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about can be found in these screen shots. One, and two. Nice, can deal with templates and things as well. Also allows you to save locally if you don't have a net connection, and has colourisd HTML. Huzzah.
Because it's my birthday, you won't find me in a club.
You will find me commenting that the names of some of the tennis players at the ASB Open are just plain silly:
Marie-Gayane Mikaelian
Shinobu Asagoe
Eleni Daniilidou
Emmanuelle Gagliardi
Virginia Ruano Pascual
Maria Vento-Kabchi
Ludmila Cervanova
And the most rediculous:
Anna Pistolesi Smashnova
"Soma" tells me having such names is mandatory in womans tennis, and if so, then fine. But if not, then something should be done.
Possibly While High...
The (sms) response from Dan upon learning that I was at a Cypress Hill concert.If you see the London Philharmonic look in their direction.
Which I was. Sara and I both managed to win tickets of Channel Z (Mmmm caller one, and two) as I had just got out of the car with her walkman on, and heard the chance to call, and so had she, sitting in the ute. So that was good. Except that Sara would be in Blenheim. So I had three spare tickets. Ben was up for it, and after some thought I called George who was also up for it, and brought along another Ben. Although it turned out that it was simple the only Ben, as Ben decided to flag it.
So we arrived at the town hall, and I got my tickets. Unfortunately the woman didn't seem inclined to give me Sara's (I was somewhat devious, but judged her not likely) So, I called Emma, who was apparenlty at the concert, but she didn't answer her phone. Ben found a female friend, who we got to go and get the tickets. Mwahahaha, suck on that, umm, ticket lady. So that was good.
Loud. I forgot my earplugs, and boy was it loud. Not that I necessarily mind loud, but I just couldn't make out the words. Perhaps this is because I only know a few of their songs, and perhaps it is because I'm not meant to. But either way it was somewhat annoying. Have had that troulbe at a number of live concerts, I think it is just that the volume of vocals is not cranked enough. Shib.
There was much dope smoked (by the crowd), oh yes much. MUCH. Signifficantly more so even than for Ben Harper's I'm going to let it burn one down. Especially for such songs as I Wanna Get High, or Hits from the bong :)
Anyway they sound pretty much like they do on CD. Which was cool, and somewhat surprising. Interesting the song I liked the most was not Insane in the Brain, but rather Rap/Rock Superstar, which was excellent.
So, there you are. I am reminded of how going to live music is good.
Beer Beer Everywhere
Fronted up to SJS in order to earn some money for christmas presents. ('cause I gots to get paid.) Job one was paint a ceiling. I can do that, I thought, I did that just a few weeks ago. I had to be able to cope with heights, as I would be working on a scaffold. Cool.
Called contact, found I would be working in Belfast, cleaning the drop ceiling of the old New World, which is transforming not at all like transformers into a cafe-bar-bottle store for Harrington's Breweries.
Arrived at store, and found some builder types doing builder type things. Found scaffold and put it together, it being a insta scaffold jobee, made of aluminium. Was less than two meters of the floor, so lower than even working on a ladder. But still cool. Another student arrived, as did Mr Harrington who gave the two of us instructions on what we had to do, which involved cleaning the metal runners that hold up those false cielings that you may have seen in assorted buildings.
Sweet. This is a lot simpler than cleaning the entire ceiling, so we are off to a good start. Sugar Soap, rags and scaffold in hand, we set off. At around 10 everyone stops for smoko, and the third SJS dude shows up. He is Polish, or close to, and is amusing to me because he speaks LIKE THIS. He is not shouting, it is just that he can only assert things. Doesn't matter what he is saying, he is asserting it. He has no inflection in his speech. Very funny, and confused the hell out of the builder guys. CAN I GET PAID NOW? WHAT DO YOU DO? I WILL CLEAN THE GROUTING. Strange.
Cleaned some ceiling, and the day was done. We hadn't finished the entire ceiling as we had helped with some other jobs throughout the day, including moving big fridges from the storage area, to the soon to open bottle store. (I was mostly working in the section that will become the bar/cafe) The other guy had to graduate the next day, so I alone was asked back to finish the job. Swee.
The next day saw me finish the ceiling and help move around big chunks of job board and other building type stuff. After smoko I was reassigned to work in the bottlestore. This saw me moving beer. Lots and lots of beer. Then other assorted alcamahols. Vast quantities of the stuff, until we ran out.
The truck arrived and we unloaded three pallets worth of stock, and I was ordered into the truck to go get more. Truck driver guy and I dutifully drove into town.
One of the better ways to earn money is to drive around in a truck.
I've forgotten the truck drivers name, but he was rather amusing. He would sit there, driving this big munted five tonne truck, and rev the shit out of it at lights. Sitting next to some little car, he would rev it, and rev it, and then the light would change and we would put off rather slowly. And all the time he would be making this noise as iff we were in a sports car, and we driving at breakneck speed. Lucky I'm so easily amused I suppose.
As I said, getting paid to drive around in a truck is great (as I'm sure Pete knows) It takes awhile to get from Belfast to Ferry Rd, then somewhere to drop off the scaffold, then back to Ferry Rd to talk to someone then back to Belfast. Via of course three other Harrington's stores, ranging from Hills Rd to Normans road. Sweet. About five mins work (if that) at each of these locations plus much sitting in the truck time was a good time.
Discovered from my boss that Dr Bob's Health food place that had gone under was suing him (the building owner) for the entire cost ($400,000) of the failed operation with the excuse that the carpark was 400mm out from where it should be on the plans. Ahahaha. Suck. The judge was deciding the case on the Friday, but I have not yet manged to find out the decision.
Moved beer and wine and spirits and stuff all around.
Next day more of the same, with the addition of building shelves, making lights on fridges work, and assorted tasks. Oh, those fridges by the way are sodding bastards. There compressor is at the top, so as to give more room for the stock to cihll (ha) out, and this makes them very top heavy, which is teh suck if you have to tilt them over to get them in the door. So, now you know.
Stocked said fridges, and met another rep for NZ Wines and Spirits, who informed me that normal Stolli is not being phased out (which Mark had warned me about) but that the flavoured Stolli's will be. And frankly who cares about mandarin Stolli anyway? Certainly not I.
I'm sure I had some other observations about this job, but it was awhile ago, and I've forgotten. I know that I enjoyed the "simple" pleasure of working and doing things, and that I certainly enjoyed getting paid.
THEY dressed me up like this!
Job two of my SJS excitement dawned, and for the third time in a week I was up before Glen. On the bus I went, and discovered that the metrocard is cool, it allows you to go into debt just once when your card runs out of cash. Then when you top up your card it covers the cost of the debt and moves on. This is cool, and means that if people fail to notice the warning they get at $4 left, they don't get stuffed if they try to take the bus to work and forget to take any cash. Which is good.
Arrived in town and made my way to Hereford St, home of SAFE (NZ (ChCh)), which I belive stands for Save Animals From Exploitation. But it might be something different. They were the group that needed collectors, and SJS had provided them with me. And some others. They had also cobbled together a motley (I can't reall back this up) collection of volunteers. Sucks to them, we were getting paid, and they weren't. But oh well. Was given a variety of outfits to wear. Tried on a eagle type one, but the head was a bit silly, and a bit small. Tried on a bear suit, but it was much too small. Didn't get past my knees. Settled on duck outfit. Well, not really an outfit, as it didn't come with leg sections or feet, and it was also missing a head piece. But screw you guys, it had a tale, and looked kind of like a duck. I selected a whicker had with some green tinsel. Was given some paper to sign, and some instructions of how to get money. Was given sealed bucket with number assigned to me. And I was partnered with a bear (no really). We made our way to the Bridge of Rememberance. Along the way I had two people literally run up to me and donate money. Sweet.
The bridge of rememberance was my money collecting bitch. I even conned Clinton into coming to see me, which brought more cash. Mwhahaha. Luckily was not too hot, so did not die. Hussled money from people. Luckily not many people asked me what the hell I was on about. Especially about the organisation I was collecting for, for man did I not really know. I said things about education, information gathering/dissemination and political agitation, and hopefully that is correct. But no one seemed to doubt me. Which was good I guess. I did know that the organisation was 60 years old in NZ and 70 worldwide. Well I had been told it by the organiser, and accepted that as true. Had some random guy walk up behind me, before I turned around. When I did he complained "aww man, I was going to tackle you, I was going to kick the bear, but he turned around too" Riiiiight.
This asshat was followed by another. A middle aged man in a suit walks up to me. And asks me, dressed as a duck as I am... "so, I guess you oppose duck shooting then?" Well, no I don't really, but I'm playing a part, so "Yes, I should think so." To which he reponded in a bloody thought so kind of way "Well, I shoot ducks. So I'm not giving you any money" (or something along these lines) And walked off laughing. So that was good for him I suppose.
Next day, did same. except from the position of the Worcester Blvd bridge. Continued scamming people out of money. Foudn some tourists gave money, whilst others didn't. Found that many people give money to me, dressed as somewhat a duck. Found people that didn't. Found people that gave money pretty much only because it was for animals, and would not give to help people. Found people that would not give money because it was for animals, and they would rather help children/humans. Also had strange old woman come along and say "I've seen lots of you around" in a soft voice, and then scuttle off. Was rather strange.
On Monday I fronted up for my monies, and discovered I earnt a percentage of takings. SWEET. 10% in fact, and as I had collected close to $500 I was well pleased with the addition to my hourly rate. I'm not sure what people would think if they knew that a) I was a paid collector, b) I received a percentage of donations, and c) Don't support the cause (I think) because I'm a dirty carnivore. Mmmm Meat. But anyway, I'm not sure what people would think, though I suspect they would not like it. Tough, I'm poor. Move along.
Assorted Miscellany
RealLifeComics guy tells me of a strangeness. Coke have produced Coke cans that look not like normal coke cans, but like energy drink cans, and have little to no coke branding on them. Very strange. As he says, "This tells me that coke is in fact run by marketing GENIUSES." Also commented upon by some random people he found.
Oh, and for the record, despite what TV2 may say, I have not been waiting for any sort of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy reunion special. Let alone a christmas version, of said special.
Plus I'm writing (some of) this on Sam's laptop, and it is sweet. My lust for one of these things (and super wang wireless) continues unabated.
My "new email" alert is the Grrr Argh of Mutant Enemy, and Max tried to attack it the first time he heard it. Has calmed down though, which is nice.
Prepare to feel the fluoride sting of Homestarmy!. Oh. Funny.
I see that the finalists for the Bush in 30 seconds competition/ad campaign are available, you should check them out, most of them are very good.
Well, I have always wondered what happens to bullets when robbers rode into town in the old west firing guns into the air. And now I sort of know. A bullet fired in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him. Sweet.
The google zeitgeist for 2003 is out, and as usual is pretty interesting. This year with (some) new fun facts and stuff.
Just like TBALC. Lore is not all about the Benjamins.
Dave Barry's 2003: A Dave Odessy, is funny funny funny. As is to be expected really. It is long, having a page per month, but it is funny, and worth reading. At least read some of it, for as mentioned it is funny. Especially the North Korean's conquest of Michigan.
Also, personally, I think that screaming "Run forrest! Run!" when the Ents attack in TTT would be excellently funny. I didn't do it, but I would have laughed.
Movies For Fun and Effect
Finally, Ben and I (after watching the trailer) give you, a big WHAT THE HELL? Lost Skeleton of Cadavra indeed.
More finally, just because we continued our journey through the apple.com/trailers section, witness, The Riddler, Frodo, Mary Jane Watson and Juliet Hulme together for the Etenral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Which looks pretty cool, and has a cool plot concept.
Finally finally, the trailer for Phillip K Dick's Paycheck looks groovy, and is directed by Woo, John Woo.
There you are, a post a very palpable post.
