Sure, maybe it would actually have been cool if I got a pair maybe a decade ago, but I guess it took me this long to find a pair that I liked that happened to be on sale!

1HUND(RED) Artist #58 Steve Monti
100 People, Hi, Canvas/Leather

It’s actually one of the (PRODUCT) RED ones, so supposedly some small part of the proceeds (hugely disproportionate to the marketing spend of course) is donated to the fight against AIDS. I guess Bono would be proud?

I actually have owned a single Converse shoe prior to this. Well, sort of… it was a kind of miniature one that was actually a pencil case. I remember in maths one year, I got yelled at by the teacher to get that shoe off my desk, until she came over and discovered that it was actually a pencil case. How hilarity!

“TOO AWESOME!” barely does them justice… they are such a great act in the flesh, and boy do Miss Connie and Black Angus know just how to perform for the crowd!

We got there too early, but hey… that just meant we got to right up the front. Which is just as well, since Black Angus was cool enough to hang around there for a bit, taking cameras that we handed to him and taking some snaps! Say… like these:

Black Angus, self-portrait!

Lucy and I, as taken by Black Angus!

All that and it was what… $50? What a bargain. I would’ve even paid more to not have to see The Duke of Windsor. Sneaky Sound System are seriously such a great, fun band to see live… I would so totally see them again even next week!

Miss Connie

Black Angus

45 more photos on Flickr

I think the difference here is that all the participants are actually quite likeable, if sometimes for different reasons. There’s energy and passion that goes beyond personal ambition from the choirs, and I think the conflict between the judges is usually about genuine differences in their assessments of the the choirs’ performances (rather than disagreements that, in other shows, have seemed gimmicky or manufactured).

Having said that though, my sister remembers Torbay from Australian Girls Choir and we do think that there is still a healthy dose of exaggeration for the sake of TV going on here! Besides, it seemed like in the end he actually wanted (spoiler alert — hover over text to reveal) the Sunbury Divas to make it though tonight?! When did he change his mind?

Lastly, I don’t even mind Kochie here, so the show must be alright!

To celebrate the release of the book The Book of SPAM, this guy, who calls himself the SPAMFAN, is going to eat SPAM for 30 days straight, from 30 July to 28 August!

Did you know that it’s the 70th birthday of SPAM this year? Me neither, but now I’m inspired! Hmmm…

It actually started shortly after O-Week this year, when Clairie first mentioned that she was looking for someone to produce a play that she had written. I made comments to the effect of: I don’t know anyone suitable and well, I had no experience in producing theatre. When Clairie later told me she had found someone interested in producing BoK though, I was, of course secretly disappointed.

That other person turned out to be Jess, who I was eventually meant to co-produce BoK with. I say supposedly, but I’ll come back to that. This is where the adventure starts, after all.

Throughout the course of the production, I ended up putting in a lot of effort and doing things that perhaps shouldn’t entirely have been my responsibility. I was up till the early hours of the morning multiple times on this project, whether it was putting the proposal together, designing posters or the program or just fixing artwork so I could send out promo playing cards to print — the latter with a broken arm (Lucy was amazing and came over just to help me select objects in Illustrator and move them around, which I couldn’t do with one hand).

I don’t resent any of it, but I feel it’s worth thinking about now. I think there were a number of reasons for all this — some of them my fault, some of them not.

I Think I Did a Bad Job, But Got Away With It!

In hindsight, I think I did a pretty poor job of motivating people to do a good job and making it easier for people to do their best work. I can see now that I should have, you know, been more assertive in helping set objectives and targets and holding people to them. But like I said, this is all hindsight.

For instance, my Co-Producer was a busy girl and had to juggle the various demands of uni, work, sickness at times and numerous other commitments and hence wasn’t always able to be around to help. Likewise, my Publicist, was holding down a full-time job while trying to work on BoK and deal with a designer who only communicates via email. It’s tough, it’s not easy… I understand. But the end result was that I did have to pick up the pieces.

I’m increasingly aware that it’s very hard to care about things and put in effort when everyone around you isn’t… and this criticism of course applies to myself as well, because it became easy for me to just think “well nobody else is doing anything anyway” and then just do the same too.

So what’s the point? Well c’mon, it’s my blog, so indulge me if I rant a little!

Seriously though, I’m just surprised and disappointed I didn’t do a better job on this play. I mean, with my years of experience in student organisations, I should have known better how to run a team effectively. I still feel bad we never got hoodies printed for the cast and crew. But I’ll learn… and besides, the story only goes uphill from here!

The Fun Part: the Script, Cast and Show Week!

This last week has been just awesome. Things actually started off a little less-than-ideally and by the end of bump-in and tech/dress rehearsals, we were probably a day behind in terms of where we wanted the show to be. People got stressed at times, but somehow everything stuck together and we had some great times. Hell, I actually look back upon bump-in fondly now!

What made everything go so well was the people — from Mo (our Stage Manager), who was initially tired and gravel-voiced, but turned cheery and ended up being a lot of fun to work with, to Josh who stepped in to do sound op when it turned out nobody else could do it. The cast, as usual, were amazing, putting up with everything and soldiering on… even Peter, in-between naps.

By the end of the week, we were zooming ahead… the cast nailed performances, everything ran like clockwork and we all enjoyed doing the show immensely. I hadn’t been so happy about doing anything since well, O-Week! I’ve met some great people doing this show, and gotten to know others much better. I’m so glad I had the chance to be involved in BoK and I had a ridiculous amount of fun doing so.

Along the way, someone told me something that went a bit like this: in doing shows, you always ended up with some people who you just couldn’t get along with after the show because that was the only way the show got done (and you had to accept this), and some people with whom you had to survive the show together no matter what because you couldn’t lose them, and hence you did. I can’t help but think that I (and everyone else) ended up with nobody in the former category at all and as for the latter category, I’d happily do this with them all over again anyway. And that makes me happy.

It’s really amazing having a chance to help bring something like this to life for the very first time, but what’s truly amazing is to see what the cast can do with it, playing characters they know nobody has ever played before. I’m so glad I got the chance to witness it! I have also definitely fallen in love with Clairie’s play, and she knows that originally I wasn’t totally convinced by it. Now though, having seen it on stage a few times I well and truly think it’s brilliant, funny and very intelligent… and my kind of thing!

OK, but enough from me. This has turned into a thousand-word essay! Heartfelt thanks to everyone who I’ve had the chance to work with on The Blood of Kings. I really appreciate it.

Now hang in there for the DVD and documentary!

AAC can be played on most current Digital Audio Players, not just iPods. Make no mistake — this is a landmark day for digital distribution of music, and it’s now only a matter of time before the other major players sign-up and offer the same thing. This is one of those times where I’m glad we have Steve Jobs to do what he is good at (even I can’t see Bill Gates getting such a deal out of EMI)!

I think it’s a great win-win for all. EMI gets the price hike they wanted, consumers get DRM-free music at a higher quality (helps justify the higher price), and Apple gets an instant halving in iPod capacity. The new pricing structure will also encourage consumers to look towards buying whole albums again, but at least they won’t be screwed over because you can upgrade existing purchases to the new DRM-free AACs for USD $0.30 per song. Increased sales and great PR for massive damage.

This is great news and might mark the start of digital music purchases for me! Wow, I’m actually excited… (I still hate iTMS, but since there is no DRM I can safely run it inside a Windows XP VM or something.)

EMI press release: EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire

Unfortunately, the camera’s lens decided to stuff up in September last year, just outside of the warranty period. Contrary to what some believe, I always looked after my camera and have never dropped or damaged it — I have no idea what caused it to break. I have since been without a camera because the cost of fixing it would have been the same as the cost of a new one. All in all, stressful.

Luckily, for my recent 22nd birthday, Lucy and my Digital Media friends together bought me a new camera — the Casio Exilim EX-Z1000 — and they surprised me with it on Friday night while we were out for dinner and drinks in Newtown! I was ecstatic, as I had totally not expected something like that… I still can’t believe they managed to organise it without me ever being suspicious, considering the number of camera-related conversations I’ve had recently!

It was the perfect solution to my current photography woes, and what better solution than to get a camera from my friends that I could use all the time and remember where it came from? Fittingly, the first few photos were all photos of our group (except for Adz, Tim and Albert who couldn’t make it):

Left to right: Houmer, Adam, me, Lucy, Julian, Johnny, Fiona, Jason (enlarge)

Thank you so much guys, you’re all the best and I love you all! I was incredibly happy on the night and even on Sunday morning when I was at Lucy’s place to pick up the camera, I still hadn’t gotten over it yet.

And I wish the story could happily end here…

(Update: Oops, I forgot to mention Adz as well, who was also part of this! :oops:)

Here’s the full list… with the stuff I want most near the top in each category. Whatdayathink? Do you have one of these already? Is it worth getting? Or know where to get them cheap if I want to say, buy myself a present sometime soon?

Gadgets

• Nokia N93i, Dopod 595 or other 3G Windows Mobile smartphone with keypad
• Bluetooth headset
• Sony KS70R200 70″ Bravia SXRD HDTV
• Segway Personal Transporter i2
• Digital photo frame
• Breathalyser

Computing Hardware

• GretagMacbeth Eye-One Display 2 monitor colour calibrator
• Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 speakers
• Optimus Maximus keyboard (released Nov/Dec 2007)*
• Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard*
• Logitech MX Revolution mouse*
• Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 (released Sep 2007)*
• Wacom Intuos 3 PTZ-631W 6" × 11" graphics tablet
• External DVD drive, for use with Tablet PC

(*some of these are obviously mutually exclusive)

Xbox 360

• Forza Motorsport 2 (released May 2007)
• Star Trek: Legacy
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
• Xbox 360 Battery Quick Charge Kit
• Xbox 360 Rechargeable Battery Pack x2

Photography

• Nikon D40X digital SLR camera
• Zoom lens to 200 mm
• Circular polarizer

Games and Outdoors

• Mountain bike
• Portable felt surface for card games

DVDs

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Ultimate Collection (released mid 2007)
• Batfink, complete collection
• Tom & Jerry, complete collection

Furniture, Homewares and Appliances

• Humanscale Freedom chair (called Liberty in Australia), with headrest
• Electric shaver, self-cleaning with a Li-ion battery
• Blendtec Total Blender, black
• Sweet Meats cushions
• Fink jug
• Glass coasters
• Mattress

Collectables

• Metroad 2 route number trailblazer road sign
• E-toll Only road sign, preferably with Do Not Stop additional sign
• Star Trek Customizable Card Game Fajo Collection (out of production)

Fashion and Accessories

• Original Phillipe Starck Fossil digital watch (out of production)
• Smart casual or vintage jacket
• Board shorts, long
• Hat or cap
• Light grey T-shirt

Oh, and what’s on your wishlist?

Entrées: salt and pepper squid with chilli, garlic, coriander and lime (left) / scallops in prawn butter (right) (enlarge)

Terahiki with silverbeet (enlarge)

Whole crisp-fried barramundi with three-flavoured sauce and bok choy (enlarge)

Ocean trout with coriander yoghurt on cous cous (enlarge)

Garfish with tomato relish on mash (enlarge)

The damage? A reasonable $160 for four (no dessert, excluding drinks or tips). I hear they’re opening another restaurant in Manly in October… can’t wait!