ANZAC Weekend
Monday April 27, 2015
Whew.
I've been on the flat hunt for a while, but have finally signed the tenancy for a studio apartment just around the corner from my current place. More than anything, it's the relief of having accommodation and knowing that it's all sorted. Flat hunting sucks. There are so many overpriced places out there, really looking to screw over potential tenants. This place is going to cost me twice what I'm currently paying, but it comes with a carpark and is in a good area of town, so I'm happy to go with it for the time being.
Jono and Charlotte have been in the country and visited Wellington this weekend. It's been awesome catching up with them at all the various good food places around Wellington - brunch at Spruce Goose, yum char at Majestic Cuisine, lunch at Fisherman's Plate, dinner at El Matador ($80 worth of lamb!), pastries from Louis Sergeant and ice cream from Kaffee Eis. We celebrated Andrew's birthday at Heaven's Pizza and then had karaoke at K Zone. We played a few games of Love Letters, messed around with the foosball table and table tennis table at work, and played some Sega Mega Drive too. It's been an action-packed weekend with lots of social interaction and I'm pretty exhausted from it all - but so worth it!
I went to the dawn parade on Saturday morning too. They estimated 40,000 people had turned up at 5.30am at the newly renovated Pukeahu National War Memorial to pay their tributes and to remember the tragedies that had occurred 100 years ago to the date. It was an emotional, poignant service, with a great sense of unity and respect. It was awesome to sing the national anthem with so many others in honour of those who had died at Gallipoli.
Work-wise, we had a pretty informative Tech Day last Friday where I gave a presentation of how my project had been going, as a follow up to the presentation I did earlier in the year on how I intended to plan the project. We had a good product review last Thursday and we're hitting alpha this Thursday, so things will be busy in the coming week!
Posted by Jeremy at 10:19am on Monday April 27, 2015 :: 0 comments :: 
NZGDC
Tuesday September 23, 2014
I was up in Auckland for the New Zealand Game Developer's Conference last Friday, but thanks to some sweet organisation by our office manager, I got to stay in Auckland until Sunday night. I've had an awesome weekend, but I wish I had more time to sleep and relax - it was just completely full on and exhausting at times.
We went up on Thursday night. I managed to grab some Burger Wisconsin before rushing to the airport, and thankfully so because it would have been close to 10pm by the time we got into town and even had the chance to get food. Nevertheless, we dropped our bags at City Lodge on Vincent St and I led the team straight to Giapo, New Zealand's best ice cream. At the store, the lady at the counter enthusiastically told us all about the values of the head chef and his philosophy behind the ice cream, as well as letting us sample the many different flavours they had on offer. I love the passion when people speak about food - I share the same excited tone and expressive vocabulary. I opted for a chocolate laphroaig and peanut butter and banana ice cream. So good!
The night continued on at Vulture's Lane on Vulcan Lane, then Andrew Andrew down by the Hilton, and finally O'Hagan's Irish Pub at the Viaduct. It was 2am when we stumbled up to Kebabs on Queen for some very late night food - it was the only place open - before heading back to the backpackers.
It was an early-ish start to the day at 7.30am so we could visit Moustache Milk and Cookie Bar before the conference started. Great to catch up with Deanna and good to see business doing well, even if the landlords are threatening to hike rent by 36%. We made our way to AUT with cookies and coffee in hand just after 9.30am.
NZGDC was awesome. The keynote was from David Brevik, the lead designer on Diablo 1 and 2. Totally amazing to hear his stories on Diablo's development - it was originally supposed to be a turn-based RPG! There were heaps of great talks throughout the day, highlights being cloud gaming, boids and the tech panel featuring Alex St John, David Brevik and Chris Blackbourne. It was also good to catch up with a few ex-colleagues and meet some new people in the industry, yet a bit sad that the PikPok crew had flights back to Wellington during the afterparty! We ended up at the Bluestone Room on Durham St until around 9pm, when Lloyd, Charles and myself ventured to Daikoku Ramen for a late dinner.
On Saturday, I met up with my schoolmates at Dunk on Parnell, with a quick visit to the Chocolate Boutique as well. We had some extremely thorough discussion about politics (seeing as it was election day) as well as the regular banter about life, jobs and the good old Grammar days.
I had a quick nap back at home before meeting Mel at Orphans Kitchen, a hip-and-trendy little restaurant on Ponsonby Road. We were greeted by a man with a fine moustache (who I later learned was Josh Helm, one of the co-owners), which reminded me of the vibe you regularly get around town in Wellington. The food is an eclectic mix of ingredients that don't necessarily sound appetising individually, but provide an amazing flavour sensation when combined. Highly recommended, and a full breakdown of the meal will appear on my food blog, when I get around to it!
With room for dessert, I suggested we try our luck at Milse, a small but very fancy dessert restaurant in Britomart. We made our way down to find out that they had a 45 minute wait on a table - doesn't matter, I said! I'll wait! I found out that one of my workmates was up for the weekend and was chilling at the Green Party party watching the election results (his mother is quite involved in politics) so we went and picked him up from Beresford Square off K Road and trundled back down to the waterfront. Each of us had one dessert but the real treat was watching the entire preparation routine unfold in front of us. The meticulousness of the chefs as they prepare the desserts is outstanding - such care and pride they put into making these dishes, and what a wonderful masterpiece that comes out the other end. Again, a full review will appear on the food blog when it's done! I had a great yarn to the lady at the front of house, and again, just the way people passionately talk about food is so enjoyable and makes me so happy.
I was still keen to stay out, so we ended up at Gable's Ale House on Jervois Quay for a quick drink before heading home just after midnight. Whew! I was up again early on Sunday morning to get to KCC for the regular service, and then out for yum char at this new place in Three Kings before heading to Julia's for a spot of Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart 8.
In the evening, I was at my sister's house for dinner and catching up with my adorable nephews. The older one had been celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day and had donned a full pirate costume with swashbuckling sword action and his best attempt at pirate lingo (so cute), whilst the younger one was stared around, wide eyed and bursting into a huge smile every so often. Love them so much. I really do miss them and wish I could spend more time with them - they really do grow up so quickly.
Back in Wellington on Sunday night and back at work on Monday, but I was suddenly roped in to help out with a stall at a careers fair down by Mac's Brewery Function Room that night. It was really cool, but rather exhausting - I don't remember talking so much and to so many people in such a small space of time! It is quite exciting though, you get to meet heaps of different people and tell them heaps about industry and life at PikPok. Hopefully we strike it lucky and hire some good talent this summer.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:42am on Tuesday September 23, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
Awkward Poses
Wednesday July 30, 2014
I went to yoga for the first time in my life on Monday.
Then I went again today.
Both times were awful. I am unfit and inflexible, and my hamstring injury was not contributing to my general well-being. It is something I want to try and like, because I know it will be good for my joints in the future and that it will strengthen my leg to prevent injuries like that from happening. But it is a very steep hill to climb and I am having a very bad time.
I spent most of last week cleaning and packing for my big shift 20 metres away. Everything went pretty smoothly, thanks to some help from Wei and my new flatmates. Though my leg was starting to give me some serious grief, I was able to rest it often enough to persevere through the whole day and get everything shifted in. After a trip to the Southern Landfill on Sunday, it all started feeling settled again. As a bonus, Vodafone sorted the Internet out on Saturday so I was able to get that all connected with my new powerline adapters to my desktop. Home is where the Internet is.
We were at the opening night of Mexico on Dixon Street for Jill's birthday and at Dragons for yum cha on Sunday. Then on Monday was the first bake day for the Wellington on a Plate Bake Club - I'm the co-ordinator for two teams at work who are battling it out to be PikPok's top baker. Wellington on a Plate sets a series of challenges each week and it's up to our teams to go out and bake up a storm and bring in the goods on Monday (sometimes Tuesday) for judging. We award points based on appearance, flavour, texture and usage of "Wellington ingredients" and the sum of the scores for each category over all the weeks determines who is the winner and thus who will advance to the Wellington City Bake Off!
The two PikPok teams are Fondante's Inferno and Flour Power: Into the Bread, and the first challenge was slices. There was an assortment fantastic edibles - lemon meringue, honey lemon and ginger, strawberry and chocolate mascarpone, chocolate and star anise, lemon passionfruit and coconut, and almond, peanut and chocolate. Absolutely awesome job by our eight bakers and looking forward to next week's exciting installment!
Posted by Jeremy at 10:40am on Wednesday July 30, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
Distraction
Thursday February 28, 2008
I've been a little late in blogging, and I blame this entirely on Apollo Justice. It's not as captivating as Phoenix Wright, I must say, but it is still captivating and I have been playing it every night.
Anyway, on Sunday I went for yum char with Laura (again) and her friend from Uni. At the same place. With the awesome durian tarts :3 We got to have a lot more variety this time, including an awesome mango pudding, that tastes like REAL MANGO!!
Today I met up with Ritu for lunch, and we went to this place on Courtenay Place called R&S Malaysian restaurant. I wasn't sure what to have, so I ordered nasi lemak.
It was nice..until I found a hair in the rice. So I'm not going back there again ^^
Debs and Denise arrived from Auckland today as well, so I took them around to the Civic Centre and to Reading Cinemas for dinner. Then we went back to their hostel, where I played piano! Yay! It was such a calming and relieving experience, to be able to play the piano and to feel the music fill the air. Ahhhhh. I'm satisfied.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:25am on Thursday February 28, 2008 :: 0 comments ::