Umamiblog

This morning I had to be at work at 6:45am. No, that’s not a typo. So I set my alarm to 6am hoping to be able to just get up and go straight to work. I couldn’t get to sleep last night (despite reading To Done’s excellent article) so ended up playing Soduku on my cellphone till after midnight.

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Yes, after an enormous hiatus I am back. Buenos dias amigos!

So what happened you ask? Well, the lovely people who were hosting my server and doing a great job sadly went into receivership. With no other real alternative place to host it I’ve had to wait until 1) I got the computer sent up from Dunedin and 2) I moved into a new place with a new connection.

Because of the shoddy state of New Zealand broadband, this is being hosted off a 128k uplink. *Shudder*

Anyway, expect more from me in the coming months!

Bring on the Wellington Sevens!!! The dates were released this week, and they are: February 3rd – 4th, Friday and Saturday

Tickets on sale November 22nd (and will sell on the same day!).

Yesterday saw another meeting of the Wellington Web Standards Group at the National Library. Mike Brown (who heads the WWSG and hails from Signify) mentioned in an announcement that Wellington will be hosting it’s own Web Essentials-like conference, here in Wellington.

The date? May 11th we were told. (Or near that date)
Who is coming? Confirmed so far is Douglas Bowman from Stopdesign and apparently a few others.

More details to come so watch this space!

Just when you thought you’d seen the best in website “design”, someone comes along with a stunner, straight out of 1994.

Now, to make things EVEN BETTER, this is a redesign. Think I’m joking? Look here to see their archived site from September 2004, care of the Way Back Machine. While their old website isn’t great, it isn’t as bad as their current one.

The culprit/client? Clutha District Council. What were they thinking?

New site
Old site
Bigger Screenshot

An email was sent around work today with the Honda Hate Something advertising campaign. As far as I can tell it was a UK rather than US campaign. We first saw the game which is an incredible Flash based game that takes an incredible amount of time to download, even on broadband. But, do try it.

Another email followed with the TV advert that the game supports, this is rather large at 7MB but is an incredible ad. Highly colourful and highly creative – I think it’s a fantastic way of driving product awareness but also helps to develop a lovemark for and with the Honda brand, but at 1.5 minutes long I wonder how many slots they could afford.

Flash game: http://www.unit9.com/grrrgame/
TV advert: /media/entries/05/08/10/Honda_Hate_Something.MPG

This weekend has the 4th annual Great New Zealand Beer Show on. A team of us from work set out as the “Official Intergen Beer Tasting Team” and got around all 12 showcase beers. My favorite would have to be the Speight’s Chocolate Ale served at the Speight’s Ale House (funnily enough!) in Tinakori Rd. If you get a chance, try it – it’s surprisingly drinkable.

Here’s myself (on the right) and my creative director, Eamon, at Shed 22/Wellington Brewery Co. Their showcase beer was their own ‘Demonic Ruby’ – another one worth a try!

I don’t know if any of us will be surprised to see a Mr Cryer here…

Try this on for size: Bad keystroke leads to $251 million stock buy

Telecom Video Conference

More Photos »

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Manners St, Wellington

Town has geared up for the Saturday night test between the All Blacks and the Lions – and it’s crawling with Pommies. The city council has decided to close off a few streets from 7pm tonight to accommodate the extra party goers for the weekend. Hopefully I’ll make it down tomorrow day and tomorrow night to take a few more photos.

“You’ve got to find what you love”
- Steve Jobs

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html