You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Endings & Singstar

Someone just asked where she could buy cheap sarongs. I very nearly replied:

Tropical Bob's Sarong Warehouse.

"So Sarong, you won't want to be Sa-Right!"

I think that I'm really glad that Weta will be closing it's doors today, even if they won't be paying me for three weeks. There's a weird mix of people working full-out and people marking time until the doors closed; this, added to the move of the additiverich.com servers, have conspired to give the radio silence. (I'm in the second group, you see. What? Shut up! :)

Speaking of work -- one of the people in my room painted a very vivid word-picture a few days ago. When describing the state that your typical meat pie achieves after ten or so hours sitting in a service station warming shelf, he came up with the phrase "meat walnut". Mmm, tasty.

In other Weta news... it seems we're still listed in IMDB as being involved with the Evangelion project, even though it's only Workshop that has ever had anything to do with it. I guess it's not that surprising -- even NZ news sources tend to get us confused (e.g. this Scoop story, which was corrected after I wrote to them -- it was Weta Digital that hooted and cheered when "duly lubricated with champagne"). It's actually quite easy to remember the difference: Workshop makes the cool physical things like props, models, weapons and armour; they employ mostly New Zealanders (at NZ rates), they tend to work on multiple projects, and they are run like a real company (with a plan, and money held by the company). Weta Digital doesn't do anything you can pick up and hold in your hands -- it's all post-production; they employ mostly foreigners (at close to overseas rates), they tend to work on only one big project at a time, and... I think it's best if I don't think about how it's run. ;)

(Oh, and as far as the IMDB entry goes -- I'm pretty sure my contract forbids me from commenting about the project they've got listed for us between King Kong and Halo. ;)

Following up on the Scoop article -- there's been plenty of partying to do with Kong being out the door. We had the wrap party the Saturday before last at One Red Dog; free alcohol, lots of tired, happy people, and Katchafire playing both their songs and classic reggae. It was really fun, but these events are always kind of sad, since they mean that people you've made friends with are going away. I got home around 3pm, having decided not to catch the bus to Sandwiches with the others who were continuing to party. Then there was the vendor-paid boat cruise around the harbour (free alcohol and bbq), and the Premier parade party at the Tasting Room (free food, but the booze you have to pay for).

And now... we're coming up to the end of the last day, and I'm looking forward to a little bit of free booze, a little bit of booze I've bought with me, and going home to the brown sugar/russian fudge ice-cream I made. Oh, and we should finish off the gingernut icecream, too. (Gingernuts soaked in Frangelico, with little chunks of crystalized ginger, in a vanilla-based icecream.)

***

The article is called Pop goes the science song, and one of the songs mentioned is "Take Me To The Liver". 'Nuf said.

In other crazy internets news that is probably old hat to most people who're be interested, there was a strong rumour that Serenity 2 would be made -- and would go direct to the SciFi channel. That's... well, that's not too bad, actually. It's a pity that they won't have more cash, and I'd've prefered another TV series, but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

***

Hah! Just won a vendor swag wearable GPS thingy in a Singstar sing-off -- a knockout round of Singstar ping-pong (where you have to sing high or low to move the paddle up and down), and then a knock-out singing round (I won singing "Everybody Wants To Rule The World"), and a "best score" round with "Eye of the Tiger". I'm very glad that I wasn't up against any of the Singstar-sharks that I know (looking in your direction, Sokky & Giffy!), but I'd never played the 80s pop edition, so I don't feel that I had too much of an advantage.

Milton, the CTO and owner of the Playstation, kicked my ass with "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", FWIW; but given that he's got many of the high scores, I don't feel too bad. ;)

Civ4, Keyboards, Credits

Okay, while it's silly to stay up until quarter-past two in the morning playing Civ4 (even though you're really tired), it's sort of understandable if you've just bought the game.

But if you do it two nights in a row, even though you're working full-time and you know that you're going to be crazy busy in the weekend... well, then you deserve a good slapping. :) Curse you, small sets of overlapping achievable goals coupled with variable rewards! Curse you!!

I hasten to add that I'm not totally irredeemable -- when I've popped home during lunchtimes, I've been able to concentrate on gardening, hanging out washing and nailing together wine-racks. The problem only arises when I start playing; so decided not to start last night. :) Instead, I watched a couple of Muppets episodes with C, and got to sleep relatively early, so I could drop off my sister at her school and my parents at the airport (where they flew off to Dunedin to see my youngest brother graduate as a doctor -- weird!).

I'll have a bunch of time to play in a few weeks anyway -- Weta closes its doors on the 16th of Dec, and doesn't reopen until the 9th of Jan. (I'm currently trying to make sure that all my money ducks are in a row before then. Yes, money ducks. What? Quack quack to you too, buddy.) I figure I have a mighty mountain of stored fun (in the form of DVDs, cds and books that I've bought and not really looked at), as well as a bunch of creative stuff that I've been putting off, so I'm unlikely to get bored.

(Yes, "money ducks" is the only reason I have the graphic to the right (which links to a blog complaining about the sign). And moving on...)

If I haven't said, my contract has been renewed until the beginning of June. (I kept saying "just after the end of April", because I was totally forgetting that May... you know, exists.) I didn't get a contract until the afternoon of the last day, but that seems to be par for the course for Weta.

It's weird to be here now that we've delivered, and all the artists have left. Getting in at 9am feels like you're getting in really early, because there's still parking nearby.

***

If you're in a situation where you work at your keyboard for long periods of time, it can be vaguely unsettling to upend it and give it a good shake. This is something that I try really hard not to think about when using public terminals. Hah, now you'll be at an internet cafe or something, and you'll suddenly think about all the gunk left by strangers just under the keys, and you'll want to type with gloves on. Bwah-hah-hah!

This is much better than the "show how easy it is to instill food aversion by getting people to imagine Twinkies as eggs deposited by some kind of giant bug" thing. Except it's probably a good idea to stop people eating baked goods that have a longer shelf life than many domestic animals, whereas internet-cafe aversion is only useful to stop you spending too much on overpriced net access.

***

I've just looked at the credits for Kong, and can put everyone's fears to rest -- my name is spelled correctly. And I get my own title, "Database Administrator", in a block with only one other name on the same line. If people want to wait through the credits until my name appears, and then applaud loudly, feel free to do so.

It looks like a good movie. I feel pretty happy to be associated with it.