You spend 12 months living in a renovation nightmare, spend another month basicly painting the entire interior. Finally get the place looking pretty much spot on and then decide to move. Of course....it all makes sense.

We're off a little ways North to a place called Silverdale (which is just outside of Greater Auckland), not a big move in the scale of things. Instead of being 30mins out of town driving from the West we'll be 25mins out of town driving from the North. However instead of a skimp 1400sqm we shall have 7 acres. I seem to recall some line from a Tom Cruise movie to do with a soul needing land in this world and I have to say stopping in at the new property certainly feels very peaceful looking out over what you know is your land.

Ill post some pics once we move in. The house is a bomb site thanks to 9 years worth of rental tenants. We essentially paid for the land not the house.

Of course now Henwy can barrage his NZ friend with bad sheep jokes because yes we will likely have a few sheep about the place..along with chickens,bee's and a couple of cows most likely.

And Ive already picked out a spot for a spa pool to go, no I dont HAVE a spa pool but I know damm well where one will go if/when we get one!

Its funny that Danielle & I have to go through 2 days of training to look at adoption as an option. To have a child naturally you dont need any kind of training, you dont need to show welfare that your financially secure or that your both level headed kind of people that dont have druggy friends sleeping over. YOu can just pop em out regardless of your inability to parent and totally mess them up in your own special way

I just find that kind of funny, a couple like myself & Danielle that easily fill in "Not a problem" on all the tickboxs you might need to parent a child go through parental training, then interviews, house checks, background checks etc to do somthing that comes naturally to the most screwed people the world over. Obviously its all for a good reason, obviously those same screwed up people could be trying to adopt and need to be picked out but its funny all the same.

On other thoughts
Ive been using Vista now on my laptop for a couple of months, mainly only due to the fact that sooner or later I have to support the thing for my clients but its ok I guess. I shudder at the thought of people trying to run it with only 1GB of Ram but I can see the odd thing that does improve over XP Pro (just the odd thing mind). And of course theres dozens of things that dont improve and just make it a bitch kitty to handle...

A whole year of planning, waiting and build up; all over so fast it’s just not fair. There’s the heady rush of boarding a flight from Auckland on Monday the 13th at 4.30am in the morning knowing you have an entire week to look forward to and then just as quickly it’s the following Monday and your sitting at LAX waiting for the 9pm flight back to NZ to board. I need more control over time I think. Something to stretch out the 4 days of the con to make it last a couple of weeks without the actual problems involved with being gone so long.

I’m not sure how I felt about this GenCon, it was fun to be sure but so much of the rush was stolen by our teams titanic crash in Round 2 of Nascrag that you can’t help but feel a little worked over by a tire iron and left in a back alley. 3 years of build up with the same characters. 3 years of getting to know them and enjoy their quirks and dynamics and finally the build up to the Grande finale for this year only to crash and burn in Round 2. I won’t go into details suffice to say we had a really late start that smashed the groups morale off the get go and then we just didn’t seem to get our brains in gear for any of the puzzles after that.
If anyone’s seen “The Butterfly Effect” with Ashton Kutcher you’ll understand my cry of “I want that power so bad right now, to hell with causality, I wanna redo of round 2!”

Having gotten that off my chest I can say I had a great time hanging out with my Nascrag teammates prior to the Con. On Tuesday after my arrival in Cleveland Erica, Justin & Jeff took me out to their local theme park (which just happens to be one of the best in the world) and we spent the day leaving our stomachs behind, which was a great kick off to the Con. We gamed in the evening and by the time it was time to actually drive to Indy the next morning it was great to be able to say that GenCon hadn’t even started yet.
When we got to Indy it was to find we had been upgraded to a Penthouse suite as they had overbooked the corner suites (there was much rushing about and cries of joy over that one) and then the Con officially started as Erica & arrived at the official Stink forumites party to catch up with forumites not seen since last con.

From there it’s the usual helter skelter of games and late nights for 4 days (particularly late if you were Erica & the BYOV crowd) culminating in Nascrag on Friday & Saturday night. By the way you’ve no idea how badly a song can be mangled until someone decides to hammer out Creeds “Arms wide open” during Karaoke night at a bar we had a couple of after LARP drinks at. The guy was SO BAD people couldn’t breath as our bodies tried to shut down and hide from the pain, he was not only flat but pitchy at the same time (which is actually pretty impressive) as he rocked out. Our group sort of sat in stunned silence for several minutes after he completed the rendition, our brains kind of locked up from the hammering they had taken. Still I guess it’s a memory to take home (possibly a nightmare).

I did have a good time, there’s no doubting that and I’m glad I got to see my Cleveland friends but Nascrag was a bitter pill to handle after all the build up and even now back home I’m still replaying the dam thing in my head.

Hooray, finally cropped and selected a handfull of shots from my Europe trip. Enjoy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nzknight/sets/72157594380310459/

Time for a new post, Im back from Europe and no doubt could type and type for an hour to fill in all the details of the trip, suffice to say Im WAY to busy at the mo for such luxuries. All my biz partners are on holiday (there was some great planning on thier parts) so Im running like a headless chicken to cover several peopls jobs at the moment. At least when they all get back I get to abandon them for Gencon.

and their gone, like Hercules and his hair my wisdom has been stripped from my mouth..I now only have the combined wisdom of 4 wise men rather than 12 but thats ok, still 3 wise men more than the rest of the world.
Instead I have large holes that DID have small stiches in them, however the stiches managaed to pop within all of 12hours of the operation, so instead of smooth skin I have large holes. I got to keep the teeth , Im figuring the tooth fairy pays top doller for Adult teeth over kids ones.

On non-toothy matters Lord of the Rings Online seems a fair amount of fun. Its a MMORPG like most any other of course but it is quite neat running around the Shire,watching the farmers and pipeweed smokers hard at work. Its also particullaly fun to run around a lone hobbit village playing a massive Urukai and looting a 'hobbits leg' from the hobbit you just gutted as well ,I thought it was a nice touch to add and certainly lends some realism to the game, I mean why WOULDNT you rip of a lump of hobbit meat if your an Orc?

Wisdom teeth out today, off to the surgeon about lunch time to be zonked out and have 4 teeth removed. Yes I took the easy way out dammit and have gone for the "knock me out cold" option. None of this 'we can make you feel drowsy but you'll still be awake through the procedure" rubbish.

I ticked the box "Id like to keep whatever parts of me you remove". Kind of a grim box to tick really as its for ANY operation... cant imagine wanting to keep an amputated limb. What are you suppoed to do, stick it in a jar of formeldahide by the bed?

Almost time for Danielle & I to fly off to Rome for a 3 week holiday. We're flying out to Rome via Kuala Lumpar and from there heading up along the western coast of Italy, along the southern coast of france and down the eastern coast of Spain finally ending in Valencia to see a little of the Americas Cup.

Were actually going to be passing through Carnes during the Carnes film festival. Initally I though 'great, super cutting edge previews!' except if your part of the rabble then you dont get to see anything other than famous people going into cinemas, bugger. I did seriously consider creating a bogus media company to at least get some media passes but you had to prove a certain amount of circulation , I could setup a company no probs but faking a million issues of some magazine each month may be a little hard.

AND...what the hells going on with the GenCon forums? theyve been down for days. What Im a bit confused about is the gencon site saying event pre-reg starts on May 7th....but it just feels like theres been NO pre event pimping, not a word from the BYOV guys ,nothing. I seem to recall a hell of a lot more of that for a good 8 weeks leadig up to event pre-reg. Am I confusing myself here someone? , event prereg isnt really starting in 2 weeks is it?

Now personally I had a nice break. Got some great christmas gifts, brought myself a Wii and overall had a nice time. My business partner on the other hand....


Justins Christmas Break
Dec 11 mon - two fillings in my upper right jaw.
Dec 15 - Pain in upper jaw starts, I start taking neuofen and panadol to help with it
Dec 18 mon - two fillings in my lower right jaw.
Dec 24 sun - I have the two lower fillings removed and temps put in after some antiflam etc is spread over teeth.Seems the nerve may have been nicked during fillings. Pain free for 2 hrs...
Dec 26 tue 4am - Ambulance called due to massive pains in my upper tummy, turns out the 90+ neuofen and 120+ panadol have caused some damage to my tum!
Dec 26 tue - I go back and get a root canal in one of the upper fillings... pain free for 4 hrs.
Dec 29 Fri - Visit doctor and get losec and codine perscribed to help with tummy and pain.
Dec 30 Sat - I go back and get the root canal opened up and re-cleaned out, it was mucky!... pain free now 3 hrs and counting.
Jan 1st -started feeling fluy
Jan 2nd -Stopped eating, feeling so bad.
Jan 3rd -Very sick, but have to fly back to Auckland, vomiting everywhere out car window on root to airport.
Jan 4th -go into GP and get taken to hospital for appendix trouble, and stomach bug, intravenes line feed 5 litres of water and havn't drunk or ate in two days.
Jan 4th midnight - operation to remove appendix, overnight in hospital
Jan 5th - Apparently I'm now fit and well and am told I have to vacate the hospital, so by 11am I am in a car on my way home. (can barely walk, still not eating..)
Jan 6th - Start feeling very bad again, espesicaly my throat. visit GP in morning, tells me I have Tonsilitis gives my medication that reacts badly with me... by 8:30pm I have a panic attack and am back in a ambulance going back to hospital cause I can't breath and look like a dried up husk. given another 3 litres of intravenis fluid, taken off bad medicine and given new anti-biotics.
Jan 7th 4am, finally home again in bed, on the up side my teeth have stopped hurting

Some people just have the BEST holidays!

We went Sea Kayaking last weekend and that was quite a lot of fun. Danielle & I along with some of her work colleagues kayaked over to a small island in one of our many little gulfs where baby kiwis are placed to grow up a bit before being returned to the mainland. The day was perfect and the sea a mill pond so it was a great way to learn the basics. Of course packing a kayak with food, drink, sleeping bags, tent, clothes etc was quite the challenge when your limited to about 1/2 a suitcase worth of space plus your guaranteed to get most of it wet unless its triple bagged..

Once over on the island we brought forth the food for lunch and managed to pretty impressive display of Aucklander café culture on a wildlife island with people having dragged pepper grinders & avocados to our little paradise (so much for roughing it)



The night was great with “black tie” formal at the table. The best Danielle & I could manage was a set of crowns however one looks good in a crown. Royalty comes naturally to one. Again to say we had limited space we still managed to cook up a storm of pasta’s, garlic bread, cheeses and salads. Not to mention 4 bottles of red wine a bottle of white and a hip flask of gin. Those that had the energy went stomping off into the darkness trying to see kiwis. Personally I’ve seen a few in the zoo and that was fine so I just sacked out.

The following morning we all headed back out but did some touring around a few of the other islands. Problem was the wind was up and the swell was higher so you tired fast. At one point when we had done enough and were having a quick break in a calm inlet it was decided to use a tarp to convert into a sail (wrapping about and tying off to 2 of the paddles). This actually worked surprisingly well. The 2 larger canoes went outside holding up the “mast” with the 2 singles coming in the centre and simply holding on tight.



Kudos to Danielle’s inventive friends for saving my arms for 20mins before we broke up and paddled normally (which was hell warmed up), by this time the sore shoulders from yesterday were now freezing up and the hands had a few nice raw marks where the paddle dragged at the skin or your thumb caught the kayak every 3rd stroke. It was a fun weekend but that trip back dampened my enthusiasm somewhat. I need to get a little 2cc engine to strap on the bottom for the trip back next time.

Xmas in 4 days!

Its Christmas again and that means decorations around the house, bowls of candy and cherries in the lounge , presents to look forward to and days off from the rat race to do whatever you want instead of whatever you we’re able to squeeze into your weekend. While there’s a certain amount of pressure for buying presents its still a good time of year!

The funny thing in NZ is its summer so a NZ Christmas has a very “bbq on the deck” feel about it. All the ornaments and shop decorations still consist of snowmen and icicles, Santa in his heavy winter gear & gingerbread houses dusted in snow icing….. but you’re walking past it all in shorts & t-shirts sucking on an ice block to cool down.

My biz partner Justin came grizzling into the office this morning complaining about a sore tooth. Having decided 9 years was enough of a wait between appointments he set one up with the dreaded Dentist. This afternoon I come back in to find they not only ripped out one of his molars but even put it in a little baggy for him to take home (ahh sweet)

What was NOT sweet was the tooth itself. It had twin holes running through the thing filled with rotting nerve meat (we're talking actual green rancid meat blegggh)

Personally Id go to a Dentist on a more regular basis but why not simply pay someone a thousand dollers to run some broken glass around my gums each month instead. Its about the same level of pain and costs less.

To Quote Calvin & Hobbes

"Oh greatest of the mass media, Thank you for elevating emotion, reducing thought & stifling imagination. Thank you for the artificiality of quick solutions and for the insidious manipulation of human desires for commercial purposes. This bowl of lukewarm tapioca represents my brain. I offer it in humble sacrifice. Bestow thy flickering light forever"

And yay it was good that the Sony Bravia 40' LCD (with HDMI support for the future ps3) was brought forth into Morgans life

nuff said.

So I’m slack at filling in a journal. Unlike Henwy I can’t spend 12hrs a day trolling news boards for interesting tidbits so I have to wait until I think of genuinely interesting things that happened to me…..of course I then forget those things long before I make it to the journal entry and have to take up space instead.

I have to say “Heroes” is great. Big thumbs up to the US on a good show. Someone over there finally clicked that not every show has to have deep moral underpinnings and can simply be a series of interesting events with a solid back story. We don’t actually have it playing in NZ yet so I’m simply grabbing it as it’s available from the website (nice of them to do that)

Halloween is a smaller affair here in NZ, a few trick or treaters and that’s about all. This year was a change in that some friends held a Halloween party. I finally got a chance to use my glowing mouth piece Id held onto for 5years for just such an event. I found it in some novelty store in the US years back. Same stuff as the dive sticks, all neon glow once you snap the inner tube. However it seems the chemical that makes the mouth piece glow must have only been good for the first 4 years as the paltry half dead glow effect it created upon activation was not worth the pain of having oversized molded plastic in my mouth for 5 hours.

Great costumes though, I love doing the half dead look, all black eyes and blood on the fingers. Should I ever get a flicker account I shall post a couple.

Danielle & I are off Whitewater rafting this weekend, that should be quite the blast. Not much hope of taking pics during that ride however.

I can safely say flying a helicopter in Microsoft flight sim is NOTHING like the real thing. When the helicopter I flew slammed into the ground after catching that power pole it did NOT bounce and then right itself like in the game, it was more of a jarring rib snapping impact with bits of metal flying off in various directions. Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t then simply hit the reset button and be back on the pad. Instead you have to sit and wait for the fire engine and ambulance to come along and cut you out of the wreckage, all the time listening to the hissing wheeze of the flight instructor trying to breathe through the hole in his lung….at least that’s what Ive heard. Not that Id know anything about destroying a 250k helicopter

Back in reality the whole training flight trip was a blast. I assumed that due to the technical nature of flying a helicopter there would be very little actual hands on flying however once the instructors gotten you off the ground and at altitude (1500ft) he pretty much starts handing over controls one by one until your flying the thing solo. Gentle is the word of day when making any movements with the controls as a helicopter responds very quickly to even the smallest motions you make.

Obviously there’s no steep banking or sudden inclines etc, your pretty much doing a gentle circuit around a peninsula but the views great and being in control of a helicopter is certainly a neat experience. The instructor takes over for the approach and landing/hover to base bits which are actually equally as cool as the whole flight. Flying in at speed from 500ft down to a grassy patch and then hovering 5ft above the ground back to the helipad is quite a rush and something you cant get on a plane either.

So having completed the flight I picked up all the info on getting your Private license (like any guy coming off his adrenaline rush). For a mere $500 an hour you too can fly a helicopter (after 60-70hrs) plus exams etc. All up it will cost you a quick $25k+ to be Privately licensed. Having done that you then will still be paying around $500 an hour to take one of the clubs helicopters out on a spin which you must do at least a couple of times a month to maintain said license. Alternatively you fork out the $250k it costs to buy the basic 2 seater mini model and fly as you like….plus fuel costs….plus maintenance every 100hrs…..plus storage. I guess at the end of the day if you want to fly a helicopter you are choosing a very specialized type of license to get and obviously either plan to do it commercially (another 40-50hrs flight time please) or have money burning a hole in your bank account. Ill be looking into it once my company sells for a few million in a couple of years time. You need a hobby when you retire at 32 you know ;)

September 14th already, it can’t be September, it just can’t. That means there’s barely a couple of weeks left before the stores stuff their shelves with Christmas stuff, but that cant be possible because we all know Christmas was all of like a month ago right?

This year has just shot past, time is obviously accelerating in order to bring and end to human civilisation. Think about it...The Earth is sick of humans seeing as we trash the place and don’t clean up after our parties, so it starts turning a wee bit faster, every year just a bit quicker, all the time knowing we wont really notice. Obviously it gets help from the Sun & Moon so none of the scientists’ spot that we are slowly losing days and before you know it BANG, 1000 years have shot by and we’ve snuffed ourselves. Quite the slippery plan if you ask me.

Meanwhile back in real life I have an introductory helicopter training flight this weekend to look forward to! Having read about flying helicopters on the internet I’m getting the distinct impression my training flight will be something along the lines of "look at the great view, now gently hold the control but please for gods sake don’t actually move anything or you'll put us in an uncontrollable spin and we'll crash"

Apparently flying a helicopter can be compared to "stacking balls on top of each other while juggling". I’m guessing the complete lack of wings, the reliance on a deadly spinning blade on top and the very fragile spinning blade out back to keep aloft makes for exciting crash landings!

I should mention I tried a helicopter out in Microsoft Flight Sim to see what it was like....I may have crashed a few times...I may have actually bounced several more times when I landed. I’m hoping a normal helicopter is as forgiving as the game when you slam it into the ground upside down.

Sunday: Last call gentlemen

Curse you Sunday, why cant Saturday simply be a perpetual loop for a week or so?
As I’ve mentioned Sunday is a quiet day for the con, you don’t usually book anything and its pretty much time to do a final loop of the dealers hall. I spent a good part of my time enjoying some last minute company with my Cleveland comrades and finally got a look at a Killer bunny’s tournament wrap-up (I really need to be shown this game sometime)

The best part of Sunday was actually a lunch we all grabbed at the Chinese across from the convention centre. During the con you don’t actually get a lot of down time to chat to people beyond a quick hello in the halls and even having spent some 20hours with my team we hadn’t chatted about much beyond Nascrag (it’s a drug ,what can I say, if your not playing it your talking about it).

So as I was saying the lunch was a golden ring around an otherwise somber day, and now I know where to go for a real US Halloween should I ever sort out that private jet of mine. The ice cream finale was unfortunately postponed due to a perfectly placed power outage in the mall taking out a precise row of some 6 stores (one of which being the ice cream place). Ill not forget the shocked look of poor Beckys face as she clung to the metal security bars across the front (and I thought I was an ice cream junkie). I was waiting for her to drop to her knees and re-enact “Platoon” before the closed doors : )

A brief visit to the Ram and the gang discovered that in Indy it is illegal to sell beer off license on a Sunday thus ruining their carefully laid plans of cold beer in coolers for the home journey. I shall remind them all next time to purchase there alchohol fix a day earlier ;)

With a big sigh I bid farewell to the group of faces Id come to know very well in a short time and left them to their 6 hour drive home. Personally I had the night to lounge in my very empty, very quite hotel. It doesn’t really hit you until you stick your bag on the bed to pack for home that its all over. Another year to wait before it can happen again. Bleh..

Still, great memories and the Gencon forums are their to salve your wounds until next year :)

Saturday Part II:


Round 3 was more of the same but for some reason you realize your under enormous time pressure. It’s as if Round 3 is written to use up every spare minute, spending 10mins moving rooms of course did not help (anymore than 5-6 Nascrag groups in a room is stadium level loud). We did fairly well overall but got badly slowed on a couple of puzzles which cost us valuable minutes which in turn cost us finishing within the time limit.

One thing I have to say is “Curse Sudoku!”. Sudoku SUCKS big time dammit. Nascrag man had 2 of them thrown in during the last 30mins of play. Even with Erica hammering them out as fast as humanly possible they were a huge drag on our time (Excellent work by the way, you maths genius you)

Personally I’m glad to say that while I suck royally at Sudoku I completely aced a drawing puzzle which requires the old “draw this image but don’t cross over any lines or go backwards”. For some reason I was totally in the zone and did this big image in one try. I think the judge was quite surprised when I handed it back to them in about 30secs (thanks to Steve for pointing out the quick left on one of the circles!)

Well done to Nascrag for recreating “Hogpimples” school of witchcraft deep inside Nevils mind. Big qudos to Tacoma for her much applauded rendition of “Lord wont you buy me Gloves of Dexterity” and the guys brilliant 3 stooges re-enactment. By the way I forgive you for shoving me out the door during your rendition of Material girl Erica ;)

Overall we actually ran out of time by all of 3mins. That was a little painful. When you think back you start going “if only we’d just skimmed roleplaying that bit” or “that puzzle shouldn’t have taken that long” but that’s the fine balancing act of Round 3. Roleplay vs puzzle’s vs completion within the time.

Not expecting to much in the way of congratulations or prizes after the round 3 we had we all headed on up to the prize giving…..

Prize giving was soooo sweet. While we certainly didn’t expect a high place we were all pretty chuffed with a 4th place position of the 13 or so teams remaining, but that’s not all folks. To compound our overall place we also took out “Best Team Name”, “Best Tacoma” & my particular favorite “Best Jules”. It’s a real buzz being told the judges have decided that out of some 80 people that would have played Jules over 3 rounds you we’re their MVP of choice. I was buzzing with that. I know it wouldn’t have happened without Erica & Mike’s interplay between the 3 of us (not missing out the rest of the team but those 3 particular characters have tightly intertwined roles so without the other 2 going hard out your not going to get anywhere).

Ahh, sweet victory.

We took the booty back to the others room to divvy up and then dropped Mike’s split over to his room (poor guy running his 3rd room party straight I think)

Finally met up with the Voodoo pope who had thus far been absent from the Con. He was pretty far gone and I seem to recall being called Robert when we headed off after a brief time. Such is the state of a mind after one of Mikes room parties 

Saturday Part I:

Saturdays a bittersweet day of the Con, the best stuff (mainly the last couple of Nascrag rounds and the prize giving) are all lined up to go but its also the real final day of the con, Sundays just a last hurrah with a final tour of the dealers room etc although the best meal of the con was also had this time around (more on that)

Still not feeling great by any means I made my way to a “sculpting in green stuff” seminar which was quite good and would have been better if we hadn’t been placed in the main hall of the convention with a cloth divider as a room.

Still, the real reason for the day came from Nascrag (as usual). Round 2 is always the harder one. You’ve lost the chaff of the round 1 folk, the people who hack & slash, the walkbys who really didn’t care either way. Round 2 marks those that are actually in with a good chance and usually more than a few good team mates on board.
What was amazing was finding Game Mechanics had not advanced. Game Mechanaics are old school Nascragers and its usually not a question of if they make it to Round 3 simply what final place they get. It just goes to show the fickle nature that is the Nascrag judge ;)

We came out of Round 2 in good spirits (Game Mechanics got in as an alternate as well, curse it all) having completed the initial quest of stomping around the insides of Prince Nevill and finding a way into his brain. It was a particularly funny round with a “Newlybled” game being run by the usually egotistical gameshow host who promptly cut anyone off that said more than 2 words with a hearty “Tremendous!”. Unfortunately for poor Tacoma and myself I was less than poetic in my answers, so while the question “Where is your home” was to me a fairly straightforward run of “The Isle of Avigon”, my dear wife Tacoma waxed poetically with “Where the heart is” as her answer causing us just a wee bit of embarrassment as Innes & Daphne swept the whole round with a perfect score leaving the one truly newlywed couple trailing on 4 of 6. There we’re some golden moments in that whole round with some great one liner’s sprinkled throughout. Well done Team!

A few drinks at the nearby brewery and some good food left little time to make it back to see if we had advanced. Advancing to Round 3 is particularly satisfying. Your now “lete” Of some 480 people that had played from Round 1 you are now in those top echelons of maybe 70 people left. The true hardcore craggers 