K ROAD

More free money from Raboplus

2007-11-23T18:51:00.000+13:00

It’s that time of the year when Raboplus gives away anywhere from $25 to $1,000 for every new customer — if you’ve received a referral from an existing account holder. Like me. So be nice and
ask me for a referral. Be quick, I only have about ten of these left.

Happy (upcoming) holidays, everyone!

Blown away

2007-07-14T13:14:00.000+12:00

Dmg +100! Missing shingle as a result of last week’s storm.

Hot Topic blog

2007-07-08T19:35:00.000+12:00

Did a bit of tweaking on Brian Gardner’s Blue Zinfandel theme for implementation on the Hot Topic blog — companion site to the book which goes on sale in August.

Pinball Number Count clock

2007-06-29T23:37:00.000+12:00

My love for the Pinball Number Count music video comes to life with this gem of an Instructable.

I have successfully modded a clock before (pulling out all the hands and putting them back together again kind of mod). What I did was cut up pop flavours of the month from my Smash Hits and Top of the Pops and made a collage for the face, not unlike Dean Proudfoot’s illustration in the ‘Tribal counsel’ feature (Idealog #10). Unfortunately, it died after about five years post-mod from the face warping and screwing up the hand mechanism due to the record humidity levels in my room.

So this shouldn’t be too hard if I get a powertool and some plywood for Christmas. Otherwise, I’ll just make the Persistence of Time one.

Approval in Principle

2007-06-11T20:59:00.000+12:00

I received a letter from the officer handling my residency paperwork confirming that my application has been approved in principle. I just dropped in my passport and migrant levy ($300) — which I hope will be the last payment I’ll ever make to NZIS — and I should receive new stickers in my passport with my new PR status. Yay!

Here’s a timeline of my road to residency:
EOI lodged: 6 October 2006
EOI selected: 11 October 2006
Invitation to Apply (ITA): 13 November 2006
Application lodged: 30 January 2007
Application received: 5 February 2007
Application approved in principle: 8 June 2007

Gig flyers of the week

2007-05-27T15:42:00.000+12:00

The sick edition: TVCs

2007-05-19T18:50:00.000+12:00

I’ve been off work for a few days now, down with a mystery viral throat infection (lab test results are still not back yet .. where are my drugs?!).

Panadol

Vicks

Brand’s Chicken Essence

Tempo tissues

GOOD magazine presents pr0n on the interweb

2007-05-14T23:29:00.000+12:00

But seriously, they should’ve cut out some of the heavy bass drowning out the innocent Sugar Plum Fair rhythm.

Zebra

2007-05-14T21:03:00.000+12:00

Gig flyers of the week

2007-05-09T21:48:00.000+12:00

Before house prices got all crazy in Auckland, we used to hire former professional polo players to tear them down so that we can build proper homes — leaky and poorly insulated.

Who knew that Agatha Christie and Fatboy Slim could get along like a house on fire?

I am not the cause of your mild seizure.

MPA Awards 2007

2007-05-05T12:57:00.000+12:00

Yes, it’s that time of the year again when when we get together to celebrate the New Zealand magazine industry.

Although it felt like very rushed occasion at times — with so many winners to announce and the crowd was doing its best to pay no heed to the time nor the MC, Helen Medlyn, to simmer down (it’s Friday and there is free-flowing wine, why would you?) — it was overall, a fantastic night for the HB team.

Our Helen belting out her rendition of Seguidilla from Bizet’s Carmen, followed by some speeches (not included for a reason). The videos aren’t great. Difficult to eat dinner and capture video footage.

Announcement of the Launch/Relaunch joint winners.

Woo hoo, Magazine of the Year!

Martin (left) and Vincent, pleased as punch.

From left: Adrian, Sarah H, Matt and Carol.

And finally: me, Francis and Ketsana.

Here’s to getting a clean sweep at next year’s show! (Back to them deadlines then ... )

No show and tell. LOL.

2007-05-05T12:44:00.000+12:00

Geekery at the chineseware shop.

Kiasuism and walkers

2007-05-03T22:45:00.000+12:00

According to this report, the world is walking ten percent faster than they did a decade ago. Aucklanders aren’t ranked in this study but the Wellingtonians clocked 12.62 seconds to walk 60 feet, putting them ahead of the French, Japanese and Canadians but behind the Irish, New Yorkers and Londoners.

Hats up to the Singaporeans. Even subconsciously, they have to be number one at everything. I’m not surprised that Malaysians aren’t on the list. We just don’t walk, full stop.

I’m not sure how fast 12.62 seconds per 60 feet is but people on Queen Street just aren’t moving along fast enough. Especially with half the pavement being sacrificed to ‘upgrading works’. However, you can make it from Freemans Bay Primary to HB Towers in about 20 minutes (counting the five minutes spent waiting at the pedestrian crossings).

Residency update II

2007-05-02T20:16:00.000+12:00

Yesterday, somebody from New Zealand Immigration Service called Martin to check up on me — presumably following up on the claims I made about working in HB Media.

I’m quite glad that finally there’s a sign that NZIS are going somewhere with my application.

Redesigned HB Media site

2007-04-30T20:46:00.000+12:00

Launched today. Finally!

(PHP coding and words by Matt, everything else by me)

Best pickup line. Ever. And a Grizzly

2007-04-30T20:05:00.000+12:00

Translation
Boy: Hello? (Turning to girl) It’s for you.

Okay, it’s a tad cheesy but I saw this on tv today (can’t find the English version) and it made me smile. Second one that has done so in the past week.

The first one being this Yamaha Grizzly spot. I never thought that you could pull off a jingle successfully. There’s a part where they seemed to have lifted a nugget off the Duloc welcoming song from Shrek too.

Houses for the coffee teetotallers?

2007-04-28T16:15:00.000+12:00

Alongside the anti-smacking debate, the housing market is the topic that’s got the whole nation talking at the moment — what with Alan Bollard raising the OCR to for the second time in six weeks.

The meteoric rise and rise of house prices indeed frightening. And the advice commonly offered for first-time home buyers who rant about the fact that they’re unfairly priced out of the market?

Would-be home buyers might also have to consider “cutting down on the cellphone use to limit the monthly bills, cutting foreign travel, putting off getting a modern car, plasma TV, latest gaming console, latest phone, and cutting 20 $3.50 cups of coffee a week until after the deposit is raised for a house,” says Alexander.

Not good enough.

Other than the occasional trip back to Malaysia, I consider myself to be pretty angelic with my finances. Still on prepaid, no car, 14-inch TV, no gaming console, two year-old Nokia, instant freeze-dried coffee in the mornings.

But I still can’t see myself using half of my after-tax earnings to service a 30-year mortgage for a poorly-insulated one-bedroom house three bus stages away from the CBD. And that’s not even factoring other costs such as maintenance, rates and repairs. At this stage, it seems more financially logical to even just leave the money in an on-call savings account earning a healthy 7.5% p.a — which is almost as good as the historical 10% returns for investments in the stockmarket.

So there. It’s not all about the amount of Starbucks you cut back, although it helps a bit.

Undress!

2007-04-28T15:17:00.000+12:00

It’s that time of the year when the trees get nekkid.

Gig flyers of the week

2007-04-28T14:34:00.000+12:00

Well, haven’t I been neglecting this for a while! Anyway, presenting two of the better ones that I could find this week. Now with comments!

You can’t go wrong with the ol’ Metro colour scheme of babies pink and blue.

When all else fails, look to your living room for inspiration. We all know that Nan’s annual quilt pillowslip of a Christmas gift will come in handy eventually. Well, what d’ya know!

Typography in motion

2007-04-27T20:33:00.000+12:00

Silent black and white explaining the use of motion in typography. A little lenghty but informative.

And now for a little fun! Fans of Pulp Fiction would appreciate this classic scene reanimated in words by Jarrat Moody.

Ocean’s Eleven master plan.

Untitled experimental video. How motion type can work without relying on movie dialogue.

Haunting kinetic type video Conscious.

And in music videos ... (A little short, in my opinion. I want to see more!)

Tekkon Kinkreet (Black & White)

2007-04-23T22:22:00.000+12:00

Strangely 3D-looking and yet it’s heavily dependant on the traditional way of animating cartoons &mdash by hand. Leave it to the Japanese to make animation mashups like these successful (think Ghost in the Shell, Spirited Away and more recently, Howl’s Moving Castle).

Watching the trailers, I hope that Tekkon Kinkreet will make an appearance in the upcoming Auckland Film Festival in July. Only three months away, and no word yet on what’s confirmed!

In the meantime, PingMag has an excellent interview (including behind-the-scenes photographs!) with the Eiko Tanaka, the president of Studio4°C, who are responsible for bringing this anime to life.

Overpass, Victoria Park

2007-04-22T14:51:00.000+12:00

I’ll ease into one-a-day with one-a-week. It was a nice sunny day yesterday despite the crisp autumny air.

Malaysia Carnival 2007

2007-04-16T22:15:00.000+12:00

It’s Visit Malaysia Year this year — in conjunction with celebrating 50 years of independence.

The Malaysian Tourism Board didn’t spend much money promoting that here in New Zealand and I suppose this is to make up for the lost time. Nothing to do this Saturday? Head on down to Britomart to see what a real Laksa tastes like. But even then, I can’t say for sure it’ll be anything like what I can get back home.

Having just come back from KL, I wonder if I should go kay poh (busybody) a bit anyway? I’m a little bit curious as to where all the Malaysians in Auckland are hiding.

Brr ... Auckland

2007-04-15T16:24:00.000+12:00

Back from tropical KL. I’m not missing the food too much but I do miss being MBF in mum’s food reviews. And no, I did not art direct any photography.

I won three SingStar battles on Friday. Work starts tomorrow.

All good.

The Great Unpacking

2007-04-08T03:35:00.000+12:00

One of a few boxes containing my books that were packed up and stored away, now that I’m staying in Auckland for a while yet.

Embarassing magazine collection!

Some of which I treated with no respect.

None whatsoever.

I don’t know if keeping these or the fact that I still have both Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls cassette tapes is worse.

School yearbooks. I was in the 1999 editorial team for year and no, I wasn’t in the design team funnily enough.

The 3 Investigators is a much better-written series than Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys put together.

Who doesn’t like to be tickled pink by Roald Dahl now and then? My first Dahl was James and the Giant Peach, which isn’t in this box.

The rest of my design books which I’m bringing back to HB Media HQ. I have stuffed them all into my backpack and it’s as heavy as a baby apatosaurus.

Half of my scout book collection — a lot of them bought off Trademe. These weren’t in the box though. Click for larger image.

I don’t have the time to rummage through the other boxes yet but I guess that’s going to be my next daytime activity for when I visit KL again.