A Chapter Closes
Friday December 23, 2016
Today marks the final day of employment at PikPok. I had been there for almost nine years, and in this final week, I've been too busy with making an awesome game jam game for it to really sink in. But now, sitting at home, packing away my belongings and getting ready to go to Auckland, it's hit me. It's sad! I've made heaps of life-long friends along the way, and dozens of memories that I will cherish. My workmates have been more than just colleagues I work with, they have been like family to me. We've eaten together, gotten drunk together, played badminton, played Pokemon, been white water rafting, kayaking, hiking, sky diving, we've lifted weights together, sung our hearts out at karaoke together and accused each other of being Cylons, werewolves, mafia and fascists. I am so humbled for the opportunity that was given to me, and I will look back on my time here with much gratitude.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing though. There's been some hard projects and some difficult people, but they've added to my experiences and helped shape the person I am today. And though I like having plans to eliminate uncertainty, I'm moving to the UK with no job lined up - which is very uncharacteristic of me! - but I know that it is the right thing to do. It's time to leave everything behind and see what the world has to offer, and that is exciting!
Posted by Jeremy at 10:26am on Friday December 23, 2016 :: 0 comments :: 
Serenity
Monday November 21, 2016
It was nice to get back into routine, especially after the earthquakes. Work was only out for a day and the gym was out for two days, but things have pretty much resumed normality. I'm lucky I'm not near any of the condemned or cordoned areas, but the disruption never really hit me until karaoke was in jeopardy. We ended up at New Kor for some soju-riffic fun, singing a lot of old, classic songs from their slightly antiquated song list.
Badminton was also back on, thankfully, or I would have been truly sad. The weather was gloriously sunny on Saturday but I ended up just sleeping in the afternoon and gymming quite late as a result. I spent the evening at Phil and Will's for a bit. On Sunday, I was at church for music, where I played Hallelujah in tribute to Leonard Cohen, who passed away two weeks ago. This did not go unnoticed by the congregation, and lots of people were quick to mention their appreciation after the service - and I'm so glad that I can make people smile like that.
The weather continued to be fine, so Dana, Loic and I went out to Owhiro Bay to see if we could catch the tail end of the Leonids meteor shower. At 10pm, there was still a bit of twilight to the west, but this darkened quickly, bringing out the Milky Way sitting on the horizon. Venus was so bright that you could see its reflection on the water. Overhead, I saw seven meteors streaking across the night sky over the course of the hour we were there. Truly beautiful.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:59am on Monday November 21, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Chaos
Monday November 14, 2016
It's been a strange week.
Last Wednesday, we watched the US elect Donald Trump into presidency, a move that stunned the whole office - the whole nation - into disbelief and horror. I'm not one to spout my opinions on politics on my blog, but I will say that I hope the minorities and vulnerable people he has consistently attacked throughout his campaign will find peace among such a tumultuous time, especially with reports of Trump supporters actively harassing such people.
On Thursday, things were much better for me as I jetsetted to Sydney for a holiday, that just happened to include capturing the Australian regional Pokemon, Kangaskhan. After landing on Thursday afternoon, I walked from my hotel in Hyde Park to Chinatown and Darling Harbour to grab a feed, and it was barely 200m down Liverpool Road that Kangaskhan appeared - and caught successfully! Over the course of the four days I was in Australia, I captured another eleven more, so I can trade them off when that feature is ever introduced.
On Friday, Mat and I covered all the major landmarks. We wandered through Hyde Park, past St Mary's Cathedral to the Royal Botanical Gardens and Mrs Macquarie's Chair, where there were some stunning views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. We continued through the gardens to the Opera House, where we sat in the Pokemon Gym at Opera House for a good 10 minutes. Continuing down past the Rocks, we watched a traditional Aborigine dance being performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art for their 25th anniversary, then headed to the Bridge Climb office and decided $300 was way too much for what it was. We ended up walking the length of the bridge, stopping at one of the concrete pillars for some great views of the city. We had a quick look around Luna Park, then trained back to the CBD and did some shopping before going up the Sydney Tower. We ended the day at Criniti's at Darling Harbour, and rested at the hotel for a little bit before heading back to the Opera House, where they had lit up the sails with some beautiful red poppies in a light show, in commemoration of Armistice Day.
After some overnight rain and thunderstorms, the weather had cooled down quite dramatically. We visited the Chinese Garden of Friendship in the morning, and wandered through Paddy's Market and Chinatown. The clouds had disappeared bringing through some intense sunshine, to the tune of 30C, so we bundled some towels and headed out to Bondi Beach. It wasn't as packed as I thought it would be, but it was still incredibly busy. The water was amazingly refreshing and loads of fun with the waves breaking on the shore. We headed back to town and I met up with Joel, who took me for dinner at Mekong, then dessert at Koi, and drinks at the Palace Hotel.
Sunday was pretty relaxed, just finishing off our shopping at various spots around the city. I found a piano at the Queen Victoria Building near the Town Hall, and played Let It Go from Disney's Frozen, and the Pokemon theme song, both of which had drawn a sizeable crowd of passers-by to the piano area. Despite ruining the last note in Let It Go, I was pretty happy with how I played, and was beaming from ear to ear as I left, happy that I had at least brought a smile to some people that day. Unfortunately Mat never took a picture or video for me, so I have no proof. I went back to get a picture of the piano there, and someone was playing the most amazing classical tunes on there...but no one was applauding! Poor guy.
I met up with Chris and Sharon, and they took me for dinner at Ms G's in King's Cross, and a quick tipple at the Glenmore Hotel's rooftop bar before heading home. As I was settling down to bed for the night, Geonet started buzzing frantically, with a 7.5 earthquake hitting the South Island near Kaikoura. Facebook started filling up with worried posts from my Wellington friends, all exclaiming how intense the shaking was. Hundreds of aftershocks followed in varying magnitudes, dozens over 5 and 6. I'm lucky to have missed it - I would have been hysterical. There were tsunami warnings and damage to some of the buildings in CBD, but my friends seem to have escaped injury, and for that I'm thankful.
I arrived back in Wellington today, and was relieved to see my apartment had escaped damage too, save for a few bottles and trinkets that had fallen over. I'm still experiencing aftershocks and am unsure how the night will fare, especially as strong wind and rain buffets the city. Of course, the inclement weather has also meant we missed out on seeing the greatest supermoon in almost 70 odd years. Classic Wellington.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:18am on Monday November 14, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
November
Thursday November 3, 2016
November has rolled around. Work has been pretty busy for me. While mostly working on the latest Doomsday Clicker updates, I've been pulled on to help fight some cloud saving fires on our next big release - Rival Stars College Football. The soft launch was to New Zealand and Australia last month, and the hard launch will be soon to coincide with the college football season and Thanksgiving. I may be pulled onto something new soon as well - and that's exciting!
Over Labour Weekend, Mike, Mana and I went to Stonehenge Aotearoa near Carterton, a man-made rock monument very much like the original Stonehenge, but modernised. Still astronomically correct and useful, and surrounded by green fields and the blue mountains of the Wairarapa. We stopped by Martinborough and had lunch at Cafe Medici, who were still serving their Wellington on a Plate burger, which was amazing, and then we made our way to the Pinnacles near Cape Palliser. We spent some time walking the track in some gloriously sunny weather, then returned home for a quick meal at KC Cafe.
The food over the past month has been delightful. Little Penang held a fifth birthday celebration a few Sundays ago. Juliann and I were invited to this exclusive event, and boy, what a memorable lunch that was. The entire restaurant was packed with friends, family and loyal customers, here to celebrate a restaurant with such humble beginnings but truly authentic and soulful food that only Malaysian cuisine can bring. There was also haggis night at James and Navi's, as well as Canadian Thanksgiving, complete with massive turkey.
We also held a music-focused worship service at Central Baptist - the first I've seen in the 8 or so years I'd been going. Being on the piano for a full hour was pretty gruelling, but I had heaps of fun with the other musicians and the small but enthusiastic crowd that had gathered. Thanks to those who came!
I've also been playing the latest Phoenix Wright game - Ace Attorney: Spirit Trials. Thoroughly enjoyed this one, loved the build up to the final trial and the big reveals that happened along the way, with plenty of nostalgic throwbacks to previous games. I felt they went a bit too overboard with some of the dialogue, which made for some extremely unlikeable characters that you just wanted to punch in the face but never got the full justice treatment. Pokemon Sun and Moon aren't too far away, so that'll be the next big time sink for me.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:10am on Thursday November 3, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Days Off
Monday September 26, 2016
Taking the two days off after daylight savings weekend (the weekend where you spring forward an hour) was a great idea. This morning, I got up, had breakfast, played some Final Fantasy Record Keeper, then fell asleep again until lunch time. So good. It hasn't been all relaxation though, the weeks of neglect from going out to hunt Pokemon have left my apartment in a little bit of disarray, so there was plenty of cleaning and vacuuming to do. I still want to hit the gym at some point today. I might have an early dinner and go late to avoid the regular Monday night rush.
The past week has been relatively quiet too. We released Shadow Wars, a puzzle/collection game, for both iOS and Android. I had a minor part in this one - the platform services integration - so I'm to blame if the cloud sync or your achievements goes wrong. It's been an interesting experience though, it has made me more aware of how terrible certain technologies are, especially how we have to work around Xcode to get our entitlements and provisioning profiles working. Because we're using Unity, it generates the Xcode project at build time, meaning we can't use Xcode's GUI to manage our provisioning or entitlements or capabilities. We end up having to script in our changes to enable iCloud, allow push notifications, add associated domains, etc. The whole process takes 20 minutes to test and debug as well. It was definitely one of the most frustrating things I've had to do, but we got there in the end. It's one of those things that you tend to do once and then forget about until the next project.
I still need to catch up on food blogging. Maybe that will be a tomorrow job. I'm not always one for completely vegetating throughout the whole day, but it's nice to not have a specific agenda and to just relax and take things at my own pace.
I should take more days off.
Edit: It started raining. I did not make it to the gym. I ended up making my own apple sauce though - it's so good!
Posted by Jeremy at 2:50am on Monday September 26, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
World Famous in New Zealand
Monday September 19, 2016
A lot of things have been happening in the last couple of months. It's been hectic, chaotic, exhilarating and draining all at once. I'm finally able to sit down and write in my blog because... well, I don't need to go out and catch Pokemon anymore - I've caught them all!
As a fan of the games, it's been interesting to see how Pokemon Go has represented the franchise, and especially its ubiquitous motto - Gotta Catch 'em All. Though the game lacks polish and usability in many places, what they have managed to do very well is - and excuse the pun - capture the core of the Pokemon games: collection. From a developer's perspective, it's been interesting looking at how particular features were implemented and how I could use that to my advantage - density and distribution, spawn points and timers, known locations and nests of particular Pokemon, and so on.
My last Pokemon was a Lapras, which I caught down by Oriental Parade at 7.59pm on Sunday 11 September 2016. It was pretty surreal, I was incredibly excited and sat in my car screaming for five minutes. The NZ Herald got wind of my story and published an article about my achievement, but incorrectly assumed that I was the first in the country to do so. Nevertheless, there were a few other media appearances - I was interviewed on Flava the radio station, and Jeremy Corbett briefly mentioned me during TV3's 7 Days show. It's been funny because I've never had this much attention in my life, and though I'm not a household name nor have I been stopped on the street, friends of friends have noticed my achievements and those friends have then told me about it, and that's awesome.
I think my friends would agree that it's no surprise that I would get this far. Pokemon has been a major part of my life, especially with the management of Psypoke, and it's no secret that all through high school, University and now at work, it's one of my favourite video game franchises. At the same time, I've still held my job, socialised with people, been to the gym (the actual lifting weights gym) and played badminton all in my regular routine, I've just squeezed a bit more Pokemon in every day so I can catch them all.
What now, then? There's four region exclusive Pokemon to catch - Kangaskhan in Australia, Farfetch'd in Asia, Mr. Mime in Europe and Tauros in North America. Generation two must surely be on the cards soon as well. I can prepare for that in advance by making sure the new evolutions are ready to go once the update drops. There's the buddy system too and I can continue levelling everything up. The opportunity to travel is exciting and a good excuse to get out of the country.
In other news, Wellington on a Plate was a blast, as usual. That will be a completely different write-up on my food blog - so much to talk about. On the whole, I thought the burgers last year were of a higher standard, but many this year were still very enjoyable. Mid-autumn festival was last Thursday and on Saturday I cooked a vegan dinner in celebration, and on Sunday I cooked a non-vegan dinner in celebration. Both turned out very well and people were well fed.
In short: there were a few very strong earthquakes centered east of New Zealand that were widely felt in Wellington on September 2; I went with Mana, Mike and Tim to Red Rocks to see the seals; I saw FFXV Kingsglaive and thought it was okay; work has been tough and I've had to put in a few more hours to get things done but the end is in sight.
We're only three months away from Christmas. The year has gone by so quickly >_<
Posted by Jeremy at 10:28am on Monday September 19, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
On The Go
Sunday July 10, 2016
Pokemon Go has hit the App Store in New Zealand and the entire country is going insane. People all over the country are walking, biking and even kayaking almost aimlessly across the city to find Pokemon and claim gyms. Never before has a game like this caused such a phenomenon. It's quite endearing walking through the park and spotting other people "on the Go", with telltale swipes on mobile phones and abrupt stops while walking.
Of course I am all up in this, as are several of my workmates. We've been driving around Wellington, Porirua and Lower Hutt, looking for Pokemon up hills, in parks and by water. There have been some extremely entertaining stories of detecting nearby Pokemon from the car, at which we all either scream excitedly and yell directions for where I should drive, or I park somewhere and we frantically run in four different directions trying to locate the Pokemon in question. The game is full of glitches and the server is constantly unstable. It's incredibly frustrating sometimes. But they've captured the essence of finding and capturing Pokemon pretty damn well, and the IP itself is strong enough to carry the game through these rough patches. I hope they will iron out all the problems and release something more polished.
Things have been pretty busy, as per usual. Doomsday Clicker v1.5 is out on Android, and will soon be on iOS. This update was pretty substantial and introduces "Roomies", experimental characters that are created in your Space Base and sent to Earth to boost the performance of your bunkers and rooms. I even got to do the voices for one of the characters! The next update is going to be technically challenging for me, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do. In short, there's been some epic karaoke for Ramon's last day, hot pot and birthday parties for Phil, Vix and James. The Moustache Milk and Cookie Bus has finally made it to Wellington, and serving up some delicious cookies by Marion St. Winter has been relatively mild and we've enjoyed some brilliant sunny weather, but the days are definitely colder.
It's hard to believe that we're over halfway through the year. Wellington on a Plate starts next month (crikey!)
Posted by Jeremy at 11:50am on Sunday July 10, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Lake Waikaremoana
Saturday June 11, 2016
Lake Waikaremoana marks the fourth of nine Great Walks that I've completed. Situated in the Te Ureweras, the three day version of the Great Walk circumnavigates approximately 75% of the lake. Most trampers opt to do it "forwards", starting from Onepoto and ending up near the Wanganui Hut, where they're picked up by a water taxi, but we went in reverse so that the final leg of the walk would be the uphill part, and our packs would be the lightest.
The drive there is pretty treacherous, a winding snaking gravel road a couple of hours south east of Rotorua. Mat, Tom and I started our journey from Auckland on the Thursday down SH2 and SH27 and picked up lunch at Matamata. I'd never been there before, so it was nice to see all the Lord of the Rings-related stuff there. We took away some food from the bakery and continued on to Rotorua to get supplies for the tramp. We arrived at nightfall at the Lake Waikaremoana Holiday Park. After finding our cabin, we cooked our garlic bread and steaks, and settled in for the night with Love Letter. Though it was cloudy and raining, the weekend would bring some of the clearest skies and sunniest days ever.
On Friday morning, I walked down to the lake front for an explore. The sun was out, but it was pretty cold. The ducks were on the water, quacking loudly, ignoring the hum of the water taxis buzzing to and from the holiday park. We had breakfast and packed our bags. The water taxi was due to pick us up at 1.30pm, so we had plenty of time to walk around. We visited the DoC Office and secured our bookings for the huts, and then drove down to Onepoto - mostly for the 3G coverage. We arrived back at the holiday park and took the water taxi across the lake, picking up two trampers from the Onepoto carpark. We made our way through the bush, closely following the lake perimeter, to Waiharuru hut where we stayed the night. After pasta and salmon for dinner, we played a few rounds of Love Letter, Up and Down the River, and Golf, the card game. On the way back to cabins, I paused to admire the crystal clear skies, and three meteors shot by. Amazing!
Our Saturday walk would be the longest, covering over 17km over seven hours from Waiharuru to Waiopaoa, via the Marauiti Hut and the Korokoro Campsite. Though the terrain is mostly flat, the sheer distance that we covered made this a very tiring day indeed. A lot of the ground we trekked over was still frozen, crystals of ice making the ground very solid indeed, where normally it would be soft or squishy from mud. In addition, the lake was shrouded in fog, making it quite majestic and almost eerie to look at. We took a breather at the Marauiti Hut, talking to the hunters there who had arrived by boat, and had the luxury of a massive gas cooker that was frying up some delicious sausages, bacon, eggs and hash! In the afternoon, we took a one hour detour to the stunning Korokoro Falls. The final stretch to Waiopaoa was shorter than expected, but as we reached the hut just after 5pm, we discovered that it was practically full, but thankfully we managed to squeeze in - even if I was on the floor. We played cards and Headbangers with the others there - a couple of German girls, a group of six Auckland flatmates and a lone traveller from the UK. The Aucklanders were pretty prepared, with bags of vodka, rum and whisky, and a sodastream too!
We parted ways in the morning and made our way up to the Panekire Hut. Though the walk was only four hours, it was an awful steep incline with a bad knee that I had injured on the first day. Once we got to the top though, the scenery was fantastic - a beautiful panoramic view of the lake in all its glory. We met the Housewives of Palmerston North, who had been mentioned by a couple of the hunters from the Marauiti Hut, and two of them accompanied us for an explore to the bluff. In the end, we didn't really see much and it was a bit too far and we wanted to be back for the sunset, so we ended up heading back before we'd hit the end. We watched the sun disappear over the hills of the Te Ureweras, very reminiscent of the sunsets I see at Makara - just beautiful colours and serenity away from civilisation. I ended up going to bed around 8.30pm because I was so tired - the next day would be an early start to catch the water taxi back to the holiday park at 10.30am.
We were up before the sun had risen, but it was still relatively light. We saw the sun beginning to rise but I had to start making my way down to the Onepoto carpark. The track partially follows the ridgeline to the Bluff, providing some stunning views of the fog covering the lake. As the sun rose higher and higher into the sky, the fog began to illuminate, producing some very picturesque moments. The walk was relatively easy and thanks to one of the Palmy Housewives, I had taken some Voltaren to ease the pain on my knee. We would have left Waikaremoana just before noon, hitting Rotorua for lunch around 2pm. There was a lot of traffic heading through Huntly and Rangiriri, and later on as we headed through Papakura and Takanini, but I made it back to my parents' place for dinner. Whew!
The next day, I got a haircut from my new favourite place on Dominion Road while my parents dropped their car off for some servicing. We had yum cha for lunch at Lucky Fortune in Three Kings, before heading to Jadan on Dominion Road for some groceries. I purchased a 1.5L bottle of 100 Plus - yeeeeee! So happy! I spent some time at the sauna at Les Mills New Lynn just trying to recuperate and knead out all those tight muscles, but I had to get to the airport early because I knew traffic would be a problem getting there. My flight was at 6.45pm but we ended up leaving the house at 5pm. Back in Wellington, I grabbed some KFC for dinner and picked up some supplies from Pak n Save before heading home for a well deserved rest.
What an exhausting weekend... I need another holiday.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:09am on Saturday June 11, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Been a While
Saturday May 28, 2016
Things have been insanely busy, as usual. Where do I even start? So much as happened since the last blog post.
Doomsday Clicker has been performing well, and we managed to hit all our deadlines - but not without some troubles along the way. The v1.3 Android release saw a torrent of negative reviews reporting the game would not boot properly, and since we were lined up for featuring, it was of utmost priority to fix the issues. The Game Sync implementation wasn't as robust as we had initially tested, and pretty much my fault, so we scrambled to build stability around all those systems. Thankfully, things came together in the end, and we secured our featuring on Google Play and the iTunes store. I've had a lot of feedback from friends who have enjoyed the game - especially the amazing and catchy soundtrack.
In honour of its successes, the PikPok 19th birthday party was completely Doomsday Clicker themed, with an amazing volcano cake with Monkey and the Red Button on the top, and three cocktails and two shots bearing the names of some of the doomsdays you can cause in the game. The atmosphere was fantastic and it was good to see heaps of people there. There was arm wrestling - we even managed to convince Mario and Tyrone to go head to head. There was dancing and shenanigans but all in all, I think lots of people had a good time.
There was an exciting thunderstorm a few days ago, lightning illuminating the night sky just after midnight, with some heavy rain accompanying the storm. I would have counted 30 flashes of light in the five minutes I was watching, some strikes being very close to the city itself. Wellington's geography means it doesn't get many thunderstorms, so it's always such a delight to see them - as long as you're indoors and warm.
Mat was down last weekend for some 30th birthday parties. We met up with Tim for his at Spruce Goose, and afterwards Mat went for board games with that crew while I went to Phil and Will's for their flatwarming. They had moved into their new place over Anzac weekend - I helped them shift a lot of their bulky furniture and drove the truck for them. Mana and Vix rocked up with some ingredients for making mulled wine, and what a fun time that was! I didn't realise it was so simple - create your syrup first with a little bit of wine, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, orange peel, lemon peel, and any other spices or fruit you want to throw in. When the syrup is the right consistency, pour the rest of the wine in and let it warm without boiling, or the alcohol will evaporate. Easy!
Strawberry Fare's last day is tomorrow. It is truly the end of an era. They have decided to close their doors while the owners look to focusing more on their other restaurants. The past couple of weeks have seen hundreds of loyal fans trying to get the last desserts, myself and Mat included. They weren't taking any bookings, so I decided that I would try going at 11am on Sunday morning to secure my final Devil's Dream Cake. Sure enough, no one was stupid enough to have dessert for breakfast except for Mat and myself, so we enjoyed our final meal at Strawberry Fare forever. You could say that it was...a bittersweet experience.
At the start of the month, I was in Auckland for Mel and Jarrod's wedding - number four of seven this year. The weather was stunning and the location was picturesque. I was on parking warden duty, so had to be there early, but with my swanky haircut and sharp suit, I was exuding confidence and style as I greeted the guests and directed them down the driveway. The wedding was really nice, given they had only a month to plan it. Everything fell into place and it ran smoothly. The next day was Mother's Day, so we went out for yum cha to Sun World in Newmarket, and then back to my sister's to see my two nephews. They're growing up so fast, especially the little one. He's not as moody as he was the last time I saw him, so it's good to see him being more sociable and having more fun. So cute!
There's been karaoke, Andrew's 30th at Five Boroughs, NZIF shows - Eli Matthewson of Jono and Ben fame, and Taking off the Bird Suit - we had hotpot, Ghibli movie nights, Iron Giant at the Embassy, Formal Friday at work, Dianne's birthday and Vix and Tessa's flatwarming. There's been plenty of Louis Sergeant desserts, lunch at the Crab Shack and a massive seven-tiered rainbow cake for Keir's farewell. I need to remember to blog more often or I'll forget all these memories.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:16pm on Saturday May 28, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Easter
Wednesday March 30, 2016
I cleverly took the four days after Easter off so I could enjoy ten days away from work. Last Thursday, we released an incremental called Doomsday Clicker for iOS and Android. It's been a pretty short burn project, starting on the first week of January and taking two months to soft launch, and another month to hard launch, but the team and I are very proud of what we achieved.
March rolled in pretty quietly, save for a surreptitious boozy karaoke the weekend before, as well as an historical barbeque at Rob's house and Sam and Hannah's engagement party at SFBH. There were some glorious days too, and we took advantage of the brilliant weather one afternoon by cycling around Oriental Bay and the waterfront in a Crocodile Bike. There was Newtown Fair, Cuba Dupa, Tim's stag do, Bobby's leaving and the Dreamworks Exhibition at Te Papa. It's been action-packed.
Over Easter, I was in Auckland where I caught up with Mat, Will and Tom at Circus Circus for lunch on Friday, then joined by Graeme for some board games at Will's later that night. I got a sharp-looking haircut at Hairport on Dominion Road before meeting Charlotte in Newmarket for lunch, and then rushing off to the real reason I was in Auckland - Amy and Vincent's wedding at Nathan Homestead in Manurewa, where I played Lana del Ray's Young and Beautiful as Amy walked down the aisle. It was a beautiful sunny day with a mild breeze, so cue panic when one of my piano sheets fell off the stand. Thankfully I recovered and improvised for a set of four bars before someone very kindly put the music back. Cue more panic when I realised I couldn't see Amy walking down the aisle as everyone was standing in the way, so when she suddenly appeared at the front, I had 15 seconds to wrap up the song - and again, thankfully I nailed the transition to the coda and ended gracefully. The bride and groom were both happy with how things turned out and apparently no one noticed that I had two panic moments, so job well done!
We were at the Heritage Hotel's Tearoom for the reception - a marvelous dining hall with a spectacular view over the harbour. The food was good and the company was great, but even as the reception drew to a close, people were still amped to head out for more festivities. I had to decline, because I had a flight back to Wellington the next day... for another wedding!
My bro Phil took me to the airport early on Sunday morning to catch a surprisingly on-time Jetstar flight to Wellington. Once off the plane, I was home immediately to shower, and off to Timothy and Andrea's wedding at the Island Bay Presbyterian Church. As a groomsman, my task is simple: make sure the groom gets married. As a side though, I was also helping to set up the church and pack down the reception areas, as well as smile pleasantly for the photographs. Again, the ceremony and reception were heaps of fun, and I got to catch up with heaps of people and meet new people too.
It was a tiring two days and I was exhausted come Easter Monday. I took it easy and rolled out of bed after 11am, getting KFC for lunch and doing my grocery shopping for the week. I managed to fit in some squash too, just to make sure I wasn't a complete vegetable the whole day. Yesterday I even made it to the gym, and made chizza - a pizza where the base is chicken. Today was even more productive: I went for physio, returned my suit, practiced piano for this Sunday and did leg day at the gym. And I have so much time leftover today that I even wrote a blog post.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:30am on Wednesday March 30, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Still Busy
Monday February 22, 2016
Been back in the country for a full week now, having had an amazing time over in Melbourne seeing the sights, eating the food, seeing old friends and of course, the Final Fantasy: A New World concert which was the main purpose of the trip. I arrived on Thursday night and spent it at Andy's house, eating some teriyaki chicken burgers and the best onion rings I'd ever had, while watching his friend play Final Fantasy X for the first time - great way to get into the mood for the weekend. On Friday, I met up with Sonny at Madame Squint where I had a soft shell crab bao, and did some shopping around DFO South Wharf, H&M and Emporium. I ended up at Lygon Street, because I really wanted something from Brunetti, the delicious desserts place with cabinets of cheesecakes, fondants, macaroons, pralines... every imaginable sweet. After that, I wanted some steak, but because it was the Friday night before Valentines and I was sweaty and gross and #ForeverAlone, I felt intimidated going into one of the Italian restaurants and dining by myself, so I went to good old Chin Chin and dined like a king.
On Saturday, I went with Andy to Manchester Press for their famous bagels, then continued wandering around town for more clothing bargains. I had lunch at Mamak, and trained all the way out to Windsor where I surprised Ben for his birthday. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the pub there, called Windsor Castle, and even tried a chicken parma. Yeeeah. On Sunday, I met Darius for breakfast at the famous Hardware Societe and had a most delectable lobster benedict. I have so much writing to catch up on for my food blog, it's not funny. I followed him to church as well, inside the cinemas at Melbourne Central, and met some of his friends for lunch at Lentils As Anything, a vegetarian "pay what you want" establishment in East Melbourne. I was back in town to get ready for the Final Fantasy concert at the Melbourne Recital Hall.
I thought I could bring a drink into the amphitheater so I purchased a large bottle of cider from the bar while mingling in the crowd of hardcore Final Fantasy fans, some of which had brought along plushies (Tonberry, Boko, Cactuar :3) or even cosplayed for the night (Red Mage, White Mage, Auron, Cloud, Aeris). As I reached the door, I saw a sign saying no food or drink inside, so I had to scull my drink and ended up extremely drunk and emotional for the first half of the concert. But even as I sobered up for the second half, the music was still fantastic and nostalgic and powerful. There were cheers from the crowd during the most epic themes from almost 30 years of Final Fantasy music, and as the night drew to its climax, we were invited to provide a single word vocal for the final song - One Winged Angel!
I was off to the airport extremely early on Monday morning. I played To Zanarkand and Let it Go on the piano in the departure hall, but there was no applause this time around - probably because the airport was pretty empty at that time of day. Of course, Jetstar was late by an hour, which meant that once I got to Auckland, I would only have an hour to get through customs, get lunch, get to the domestic terminal and catch my flight to Wellington. That lunch I had from Auckland International Airport was the most depressing meal I've had - having spent four days in Melbourne eating the most delicious food ever and having to come back to New Zealand and eat Subway of all things... truly sad.
Since then, I've been super busy still, trying to finish the project I'm on. We were at Coenn's Provisions on Tuesday for Tim's birthday, drinking heavily at Fork and Brewer and S & M's on Friday for Bobby and Cory's farewell, I was at Pete and Bronwyn's wedding on Saturday where I was the only person to volunteer to speak, and I was at music at Central Baptist on Sunday. It's been an action packed weekend and I need another couple of days to unwind... but there's no rest for the weary. I was almost tempted to go back into work to do some loading optimisations, but I think I should stay at home and relax.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:01am on Monday February 22, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Melbourne Bound
Thursday February 11, 2016
I have been insanely busy lately. My current project is six weeks long, and we are currently in week five. Fortunately for me, I'm at Auckland airport, waiting for a plane to Melbourne while the team back in Wellington are pushing towards the final deadline. Still, I did a few nights of overtime last week to get through my huge list of tasks so it was not without my own sweat and tears.
People have been visiting. I caught up with Melburnians Ants, Jo, Ben and Jill when they were here for a wedding. My parents came and visited too, and we enjoyed much delicious food. It was dad's birthday (almost) while they were down so I took them to Matterhorn and Floriditas.
A couple of weeks ago, I was up at 5.30am to see all five classical planets in the sky at the same time. Looking out to the glow of sunrise out east was Mercury, then looking in an arc high in the sky, Venus in its dawn brilliance, Saturn, Mars, the waning quarter moon and finally Jupiter. It was a sight to see. Absolutely stunning. I've never seen all five at once like that before, and I think it speaks volumes of the kind of wonderful city I live in that I was able to walk out onto my balcony and see all of this so clearly.
Last weekend was Waitangi Day and Chinese New Year, which I spent with my parents, my sister and two nephews. I think it's important to observe tradition; it is custom to be with family on Chinese New Year's Eve for a reunion dinner. The next day, my parents were off to Malaysia with 4kgs of cherries, 2kgs of plums, a loaf of bread, wine, chocolates, smoked salmon, crackers....
So the reason I'm in Melbourne is that I am fulfilling an old dream that has been in planning for the past decade: see a Final Fantasy orchestral concert. It's going to be mega. All the nostalgia, emotion, memories and melodies. I will hopefully be stuffing my face full of delicious food too. Looking forward to it!
Posted by Jeremy at 12:48am on Thursday February 11, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Mondays
Monday January 11, 2016
Mondays suck.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:40am on Monday January 11, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
It's Cold
Monday January 4, 2016
Happy New Year - it's 2016! I'm finally back in Wellington after a long miserable 8 hour drive through very wet roads and chaotic traffic down State Highway 1. Of course, the first thing that greeted me when I got home was some jerk parked in my car park, so I wasn't particularly happy about that. Turns out he's in Japan for a few weeks and I can park in another car park for the time being. Lucky for him, or I would have towed his ass out of there so fast.
Over the past couple of weeks, I got to catch up with heaps of people. There was never really a dull day, I was always out meeting up for lunch or dinner, or if I had some spare time, I'd even go to the gym. There was yum cha and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, I was back at Milse and Giapo, and went to Nol Bu Ne and Shao Lin Kung Fu Noodle. New Years itself was spent with my school mates on top of Mt Victoria in Davenport watching some very disappointing fireworks on the Sky Tower. It looked like someone was just running around the rim shooting off Roman Candles. We were too busy watching the fireworks being let off on the mount that we missed the end of the Sky Tower ones... and there was no big finale either. Lame!
Work tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing everyone again.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:19am on Monday January 4, 2016 :: 0 comments ::