Merry Christmas!
Thursday December 25, 2014
It's been a busy time in Auckland, catching up at various eateries with friends and family. On Monday I caught up with the Pokemon gang at Sun World, Newmarket for yum cha, and then the Auckland PikPok crew at Tae Neung Korean Barbeque for dinner. On Tuesday, I met up with Matt at My Kitchen and then went with my parents to Tatsumi in Newmarket for their Christmas Special Degustation - sooo good. Expect an emotionally charged food blog post about this in the new year.
On Wednesday I was at Reuben's playing 7 Wonders with the Babel expansion and a quiet dinner at home before heading out to Milse in Britomart for some fantastic summery desserts. The night was not over yet though, there was some Smash Bros to be had at Julia's. Yuss!
And finally today, I got to see my adorable nephews - one almost four years old and the other almost a year old. We drove out to Missions Bay for a classic Kiwi Christmas picnic; we were one of many hundreds of people enjoying the wonderful warm weather around the city. We ended the day with a turkey roast back at home.
Early flight to Melbourne tomorrow!
Posted by Jeremy at 8:57am on Thursday December 25, 2014 :: 0 comments :: 
End of Year Shenanigans
Sunday December 14, 2014
It's that time of the year when the parties go wild and the people start gearing up towards Christmas and the end of the year. Most of us are looking forward to the holidays ahead, even among the stress of Christmas shopping and looming deadlines, and, for the PikPok crew, the competitive nature of this year's Game Jam. Several of the teams have already begun their prototyping ahead of the final week, so it's shaping up to be a tough competition indeed.
Again, despite my efforts to try and play Pokemon or failing that, work on my Game Jam game, this week was quite busy in terms of social events. We watched a horrible Ewoks spin-off movie for 80s Movie Night on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I was out at the Fringe Bar to watch Joe's improv graduation show and then stayed for another show by Wellington Improv Troupe. On Thursday, good old Bryce had come down for Kiwicon so we caught up with him at Crafters, and on Friday... it was karaoke!
Jules is turning 30 this year so she's been having a series of birthday-related events, one of which was an amazing karaoke session last Friday. We started strong, with some good classics like Final Countdown, Bohemian Rhapsody and Keep on Movin', followed by some more contemporary songs like Tay Tay's Shake It Off. But the highlight of the night was the Idina Menzel Let It Go battle between myself and one of Juliann's friends Sarah, who rose to the challenge and duetted the iconic Frozen song with me. We channelled the frozen fractals and icy blasts, crescendoing to the final note, and at the song's triumphant end - the cold never bothered me anyway - we high-fived a job well done as the entire room erupted into wild applause.
The night had not ended there, however. We finished up at KZone and headed to JJ Murphy's to see Vigz's band Zephyr playing some cool 70s and 80s covers. There was the oldest mosh pit I'd ever seen. But the environment was jovial and light-hearted, and we ended up mobbing the dance floor during Summer of 69, so there were plenty of good times to be had.
On Saturday we had the final PikPok badminton session for the year, and then it was off to the bakery for some pies, and then to LBQ with Thomas and Astrid for another MKR BBQ. Despite the weather, Ian and Sandie had set up their equipment and were making some delectable things. I chose the Hefe marinated Lamb Loin on Bruschetta with Goat's Cheese Mousse and Mint Pea Crush, which was pretty good. The goat's cheese mousse was wonderfully smooth and had such a good flavour to compliment the other ingredients. We stayed for an hour and a bit, and then headed off to the Apartment bar for the PikPok Christmas Party.
And boy was it a party.
There was Smash Bros set up on the Wii U and Giant Jenga all ready to go. We had five PikPok-themed cocktails from Oreo, Into the Dead, Flick Kick Football Legends, Robot Unicorn Attack and Rival Stars Basketball. There was much joviality and plenty of shenanigans to go round. At one point in time I was singing I'll Make a Man out of You and also Let it Go in French. At another point in time, I started the Animaniacs Nations of the World song. I was also balancing on top of a tower erected from the Giant Jenga blocks and I was also involuntarily trust falling into the loving hands of my co-workers.
We moved on to Little Penang for some food around 8pm, where I promptly declared how amazing the night was all over the table - it must have been those three shots right before I left. Thankfully Nic, Damon, Mana and James, who were with me, took care of the mess as I was ushered into the bathroom to clean myself up. I felt much better after that, and continued on to the Fork and Brewer very briefly to see Ben off, before being walked home by Polly and Vigz.
I posted a rather dire-sounding message on Facebook making seem I was in quite a bad place, so several people had texted me to ask me if I was okay, and I reassured them everything was fine, that I was just drunk and overwhelmed because it's the first time I've ever done that, and I amended the message on Facebook as soon as I could. But it's humbling to see that I can count on all these awesome friends to be there for me if I ever need them.
For that, I am truly blessed and thankful.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:29am on Sunday December 14, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
But I Just Want to Play Pokemon :(
Sunday December 7, 2014
My copy of Pokemon AlphaSapphire arrived on Friday, but unfortunately my weekend has been so stacked with events that I simply haven't had time to play it. On Saturday I had badminton in the morning, then I met Mana at LBQ to check out the food being served by Dai and Dal, the Laotian girl team from New Zealand's version of My Kitchen Rules. I stopped by the Southern Cross briefly to say hi to Sunni who was having her 30th Birthday, but my back started playing up so I needed to move... and ended up at Mana's for the Singstar Party. Paul texted mid-afternoon for a quick drink at the Sprig and Fern that night so I obliged too. I dragged Mana and Phil along and I met Paul's flatmate Alex there too. It was a pretty crazy Saturday and I was absolutely shattered by the time I got home.
Today has been pretty tiring too. I made it to church for the second Sunday of advent - peace - and I was out to Churton Park for the last family group gathering of the year. By the time I got home, it was 3pm and I passed out on my bed for a three hour nap. So good. I'll get a bit of chance to play Pokemon after I finish blogging...!
Last weekend was pretty crazy too. After badminton, I met Jimmy at the gym (because it was still Bring A Buddy For Free Month) for some more upper body workouts, but the highlight of Saturday was 8-player Smash Bros on the Nintendo Wii U. So awesome. I seemed to have some dominance with the Pink Powerpuff Duo, Kirby and Jigglypuff. The Wii U version feels great and looks gorgeous in 1080p. We had dinner at Little Penang and I hung out at Mana, Will and Phil's for a bit before heading home for the night since I had music at church the next day.
On Monday, I was at Campbell and Linda's for a very satisfying steamboat and Mana, Will and Phil's on Tuesday for the 80s Movie Night - this week's choice was Labyrinth. It feels like I've missed out on a lot of 80s movies, so this is a good opportunity to catch up on some of the films that have been so iconic of that era. The week before we watched Princess Bride - not particularly to Mana's liking but I appreciated the odd sense of humour which would have been far more appropriate for that time period than today.
We found out our Game Jam teams for this year and have started brainstorming ideas. GJ2014 will be in the last week of work, and will conclude what has been a pretty busy year for me at PikPok. Next year will be full of challenges too, and I'm looking forward to completing my first commercial Unity project.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:41am on Sunday December 7, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
The Great Kayaking Adventure
Sunday November 2, 2014
It's been a pretty busy past couple of weeks. My copy of Super Smash Bros and Kirby Triple Deluxe arrived so I've been playing those and having a great time. I love how each franchise in Smash Bros is represented in the game, with all the care to keep the characters, art style and music true to the series that they come from. Nintendo have done a great job with the 3DS version so it will be interesting to see how the Wii U version turns out, as well as how the eight player mode will fare.
I've also started my new project at work. Still getting used to Unity but it has made prototyping rapid and easy. We've tried three concepts so far - none of them really a direction we want to continue with, so we will be exploring more avenues in the weeks to come. We'll be in pre-development until the end of the year and then start full production next year. Mark my words, we'll be the first project to have a throw-away prototype.
Anyway, over Labour Weekend, nine of us boarded the Interislander Ferry from Wellington to Picton to kick off a five day kayaking adventure in the Abel Tasman National Park. Things were off to a shaky start though, we ended up leaving at 10pm instead of 7pm because they'd overloaded the ferry and had to turn back. When we did get on our way, we were through some 3m to 4m swells, which was pretty bad - Vigz and Will couldn't keep it in and chundered, whilst the others, myself included, moved to the back of the boat to ease the queasiness. After a rough twenty minute patch, the swells subsided and I moved back to the top deck with the Frenchmen and Matt. I find it's a matter of keeping your mind focused and being alert and aware of your surroundings so you don't get dizzy. It was quite an experience, one I was hoping we wouldn't have to go through on the way back. We reached Picton close to 1am and Vincent drove us to Motueka. The roads are dead empty but the stars are fantastic - unfortunate as we don't have time to stop and gaze. We eventually reached Motueka close to 3.30am and we all passed out for the night at the Hat Trick Backpackers.
We were up and about at 9am on Saturday, ready for a day of kayaking. We had some fantastic pies from Toad Hall, the cafe next to the kayaking company, before heading out to Marahau, the start of our journey. By the time we'd finished prepping and packing, it would have been close to noon when we finally got out onto the water. It was a grueling four hour paddle to our first campsite, the Anchorage and my leg had started playing up, but some painkillers soon solved the problem. The tents went up and the kayaks were stowed away for the night, and the first item on the list was to make dinner. The large plan I'd written up said "steak, salad, potatoes" except I had forgotten to buy steak that morning. A "mis-steak", says Matt. Hilarious. Dinner ended up being kransky sausages, haloumi, salad, boiled eggs and potatoes. We were all so hungry that it didn't really matter it was such a miscellaneous collection of ingredients. We opted for a few moments of star gazing out on the beach - fantastic night sky, no light pollution and no clouds, but unfortunately just way too tired to wait for any shooting stars!
The next day, we were up for an early start again but a far more relaxed paddle this time round. We went up to Pinnacle Island and saw some seals; we took a detour down Falls River - only accessible for kayaks at high tide - and we were so fortunate to see a baby seal frolicking in the water around us. It continued to swim under and around the kayaks, splashing water every so often, and it followed us out as we left the river. We eventually arrived at Mosquito Bay and since it's not on the Abel Tasman walkway, we had the whole campsite to ourselves. The island in the bay is accessible at low tide and we had a bit of an explore after we'd finished setting up our tents and all (I almost lost my glasses on the rocks), but the weather cooled down considerably and it was a pretty wet night. Nevertheless, it was amazingly peaceful area. Dinner was stir-fry vegetables and black bean dace on rice. Classic Asian comfort food!
Most of us emerged relatively dry the next day. I had wet feet; Will and Mana's tent had a swimming puddling right in the center. Vigz and Mike, whose tent had a hole on it, were protected by the bivouac set up they'd created. The plan for Monday was to head to Observation Beach and explore. The weather forecast for Wednesday was looking grim, so we decided we should start heading back towards Marahau in case things got really windy. Soon after we got to Observation Beach, the wind did start picking up and the waves were crashing on the beach quite violently. We set up the campsite and scoffed down some lunch, and tried to keep dry and warm. Dinner was corned beef ("pet food", the French said mockingly), beans (worst decision ever) and tortillas.
I was up early on Tuesday morning with Mana watching the sun come over the Nelson hills. The night was quite rough - the continuous crashing of waves against the beach made it difficult to sleep. After a quick breakfast, we were out on the calm water with some brilliant sun and a bit of cloud cover. We paddled past Adele Island and saw some seals, and continued back to Marahau at a leisurely pace. I remember being absolutely smitten with the serenity and beauty of where we were. We arrived just before noon at Marahau and made our way back to Motueka for a mean feed (KFC!) and then some pub time at the Sprig and Fern. We played Cards Against Humanity (I had to explain some awkward things to the Frenchies) and we retired for the night close to 11pm.
I was awake early on Wednesday morning and was in the kitchen of the backpackers when Matt walked in and challenged me to a few games of chess. I beat him all three times. That was fun. We packed all our stuff and made our way to Motueka Airport - Mana had decided it was a great idea to go skydiving and was psyching everyone up for it. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for us to go up so we ended up at Toad Hall for some final pies (highly recommend the wild goat curry pie) before splitting up - Vincent, Loic, Emilie and myself went to Nelson Lakes for a squizz, Matt, Mike, Vigz, Mana and Will took the northern route to the Queen Charlotte Sounds. It was cold and wet at the Nelson Lakes, but the fog provided a real eerie atmosphere to the area. We fed the ducks and eels and made our way to Picton to meet up with the others. On the ferry, we were playing Up and Down the River, and thankfully the boat ride was smooth so no one chucked.
It was an amazing weekend that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Great company, heaps of adventures, awesome scenery and so much fun.
Posted by Jeremy at 5:41am on Sunday November 2, 2014 :: 0 comments ::