Hubris.co.nz

Sometime around September last year I started desperately searching the internet for a house we could rent for New Year’s Eve, as the beloved bach in Waiterere had been sold. Astonishingly, I managed to find one – in Raumati. It had six bedrooms, three bathrooms and was across the road from the beach. And we got it! And so, #raumatirumble was born. You can read Laura’s shorter description with more crying here, or read on.

Obviously everyone who’d been at Waiterere had to return. That was me, Kim & Brendan (KRENDAN SMASH!), Jason & Kate (Kason) and Stacey and Mike, who met and became Macey on that fateful occasion. But we’d also folded in Laura Hungry and Tim (Lim) into our social group, like whipped cream into a coulis. Notice a reoccuring theme? Oh yeah, me amongst a whole bunch of couples. So it was time to find myself a summer boyfriend. I thought there was potential, and there had been a really nice first date, but a second never eventuated. Also we found out that the other Laura (Lozza) was going to be around, and we wanted her with us. Yay Summer Boyfriend!

So emails went around about what we needed to take with us, and we decided to each put in $50 for food, and cases of wine were ordered, and ginger and rhubarb syrups brewed, and limoncello soaked and bottled (well, the bits that Bad Tom didn’t accidently add to our already alcoholic lemonade on Xmas Day anyway). And then the weather reports were read and it was rainy mcrainstorms ahead. Boo, you whore. So I packed some socks as well as three pairs of togs, and hit up the Sallies shop in Newtown for four trashy novels (and a stack more saucers for the #plateproject while I was at it).

Finally December 30 rolled around, after a couple of very long days of anticipation. Rachel came over to catsit, and after about a thousand trips, I managed to get my car all loaded up with food, wine, chilly bin, paddling pool, fancy clothes and all. I collected Kim and Lozza in the rain, and we were off, cranking up our themesong (we run this town, after all) and other Rihanna choones along the way, talking about how major Nicki Maraj is, and loading up on vegetables on our way (avocados at 69 cents and strawberries $1.50 a punnet? Oh hell yes!). We got somewhat lost in Raumati but eventually with our three iphones combined, we managed to make our way to the house, and unload.

Kason and KRENDAN had already secured themselves upstairs rooms, so I headed downstairs. Summer Boyfriend and I took separate bedrooms because I snore, but figured we could do it on the ping pong table upstairs so I could show off some new tricks while I was at it (for serious: I was at Family Planning the other week getting a full range of STD checks (my Xmas present to myself: being assured I am clean. Treat yo’self!) and the nurse was like “your vagina muscles are so strong you should learn some ping pong ball tricks!” because I kept popping out the speculum. Why do I always get the interesting health professionals?). I pushed the beds in my room together none the less, because I am not very practiced at sleeping in a single bed and did not want to injure myself. Also downstairs were Macey, and the biggest room of all was saved for Lim. Seriously, that bitch was like, huuuuuuuuuuge. Which came in very handy later…

Too many details, right? When Lim got there, we held a summit and worked out an approximate meal schedule, and dispatched the menfolk off to the supermarket in the root ute (in this scenario, Lozza counted as a man, on account of being my summer boyfriend). Meanwhile, us ladies drank wine and called ourselves the Real Housewives of Raumati. I was wearing a caftan, after all.
Our 3G connection was weak, but our love was strong. I rang up the property owner to question why there was no TV when there had been one in the pictures, and scoffed at him for saying “there are Sky connections if you brought your own decoder” because what good would that be without a screen to watch it on? He rang back a little later and then I rang him from a telecom phone with better coverage, and he promised to send one over the next day. Victory!

To my extreme delight, Laura had brought along a couple of Babysitters Club books, and so we made Tim give us a dramatic reading about the truth about Stacey and her diabetus (captured on Instagram by Jason here). It was raining but the wine and rhubarb ginger gimlets were warming, and it wasn’t actually cold, so I went for a swim with some of the boys. The beach was beautiful even in the grey, and easily accessed by some steps. The hot shower afterwards was good, especially since I didn’t have to wait for anyone else to finish first.

My wrists were sore from all the wanking pre-holiday chopping and cooking and scrubbing so I assumed the position of Team Leader instead of cook, and we got two huge pans of glorious mac’n cheese in the oven. Cooking teams are great! We spent the evening most pleasantly, stuffing our faces, drinking wine and talking shit. Good times.

The next morning I woke up to a good deal of excitement upstairs. Santa had just dropped off a brand new 42 inch plasma screen, and the menfolk were scrambling around to assemble it while others played barista with Lim’s coffee machine. There were fried potatos and toast and eggs for everyone but me, and once the kitchen was cleaned, the boys (and Stacey) went to the rec room to play Settlers of Catan loudly, while the girls made mimosas, watched The Mighty Boosh (we even had our own Milky Joe), and painted our nails with OPI’s Rainbow Connection and other delights. I even have a picture of it, including glittery cakeballs made by Laura.

So important! So shiny!

Cider was drunk and the weather cleared up a little bit, so we got our ocean swim on, my summer boyfriend squealing away. It was cold, but we all had a lovely splish splash, and when we got back to the house, after hot showers and putting PJs on, I busied myself making fried cheese sandwiches for people. Mike’s friend arrived around that time and didn’t bother to introduce himself to the other room of people. In his defense, Mike didn’t introduce us either. So we drank some more cider and did some prep for our fancy dinner. I made bread rolls! The dough rised! And rised! And then it rose again after I balled it up! SUCH AN ACHIEVMENT! Then Laura brandished pipe cleaners at us, so it was time to get our cat ears on. Stacey did mine for me, and I got my fancy duds on:

Turns out my Summer Boyfriend gives great pussy too:

My tweet at the time said we should be on the cover of Cat Fancier magazine, because WE ARE FANCIER THAN CATS. We are major. More catting followed, and we also decided to give the boys cat head dresses. Not all of them were keen on having their toenails painted though.

After arguing backwards and forwards about whether we could fit the outdoor table into the dining space as well, we ended up setting up the ping pong table for dinner, which worked very well for the eleven of us. There was lamb and beef from the bbq, amazing potato gratin, my rolls (and rolls and rolls. Get it? I’m fat), and then because we suddenly realised there were two vegetarians, we also made a carrot salad and asparagus very hastily. And we sat down and ate and ate, and talked about what our resolutions for the year had been, and if we’d kept him. I had resolved not to sleep with any more close friends, workmates or married people. I didn’t sleep with any workmates in 2011, woo! (Or did I?) And I resolved to shoot a gun in 2012. After dinner we broke out the limoncello that I had made for dessert, and started singing songs from Community, which may have been a little disturbing for those who were not familiar with it. Mike’s friend revealed that he voted National, which made everyone uneasy. There was some dancing, and at midnight I put down my glass of Glen Coco Juice, and warned my Summer Boyfriend I was going to dip her and kiss her, which I did. As a good hostess, I thought it would only be fair enough to kiss Mike’s friend too, because everyone should have a good time. And then there was more crazy dancing, some wacky waving arms to ‘Wuthering Heights’ of course, which I hope someone will post the video of. Cigars were smoked on the deck with whiskey, and I felt very manly. More drinking was done, and I showed more hospitality, painting the friend’s toenails and introducing him to the delights of the Arcade Fire and gave him a place to sleep. Because I am a good host, okay?

On New Year’s Day, we got to go to Wendy’s for lunch, huzzah! And then we watched Mean Girls and started drinking again, and the sun came out, and the ocean was a lovely place to swim off a hangover and feel bad in. That evening we watched Point Break as Jason made us pizza after pizza, and once again we resolved to shoot a sequel, starting with Patrick Swayze washing up on Raumati Beach. I think Kate is going to play Gary Busey.We played Articulate with some amazing calls like me “Someone who talks to the dead” and someone else yelling “…. Necrophile!”.

The next day was glooooooooooriously sunny. After fantastic breakfast triple pikelets, there were many card games outside in the shade, much devouring of Rivals by Jilly Cooper which is so fantastically trashy and also happens to be Laura’s favourite book so she constantly receited lines at me about people’s bushes. Very major. More cider was purchased, along with some other treats, and more swimming was done. There was still almost no cellphone coverage, so we heard that people were angry with Libra Tampons for transphobia, but couldn’t watch the ad. So we drank more and bbqed a feast. Later, a commitee was sent downstairs to Lim’s room to build us a blanket fort. Holy fucking crap. I thought last year’s was spectactular, but this was astonishing. Four clothes racks provided central support, and there were mattresses and pillows galore, as well as a chilly bin and a stereo so we could party in there. Here’s a picture taken by my Summer Boyfriend. Naturally the first game inside a blanket for is Marry, Fuck Kill, and as Mean Girls was fresh in our minds, it stirred up some hefty debate. Most everyone would marry Karen, but there was a lot of argument about who was richer – Regina, or Gretchen. Obviously it’s Gretchen, because her dad like, invented toaster strudel. Plus I think Gretchen would work much harder in bed because she wants people to like her, and Regina would just lie back. But if you fucked Regina, there’s a good possibility that Amy Poehler might walk in on you, which would be great. INTENSE DISCUSSION! Someone has a video of it which they might post. Of course, we also played I Have Never too, and I discovered that the past six months of my life result in me getting raaaaaaaaaaaaaather drunk during that game. Then there was some wailing to Adele, and a great big hangover the next day.

Macey had to leave us, but we consoled ourselves with the saddest sight in the world ever – Jason playing paddle tennis by himself on the beach. I had the best swim ever, and then sent the day alternating between sun and shade and wet and dry. Monkey butlers even brought me G&Ts. And I very nearly won at cards after making Tim shift into the paddling pool with me. Yes there was an ‘f’ in that, thanks. And then some kittens came to visit, as snapped by Laura in front of the paddling pool!

I feel like I am failing to capture this magical holiday and have no way to describe all the injokes and the number of times I sang “YOU’RE WELCOME, YOU’RE WELCOME FOR EVERYTHING” like Pierce, and the number of times I told people I loved them as Laura ate golden syrup off her knife or Lozza wrote “I LOVE LAMP” on the beach. There was lots of laughter and also enough quiet time, the house was plenty big enough for us all, and the bad weather over the first couple of days didn’t matter. We ate and drank like kings, and didn’t even spend all that much money on it. On our last night we watched slide shows of the pictures and videos people had taken, looking back already. I was very very sad to leave the next morning, but super happy to come home to Sebastian.

So that was my New Year’s. How was yours?

You know how maybe you’re a horse rider, and you’re pretty good at it, and you’ve ridden a lot of horses, and then one throws you, and you don’t know how the fuck you’re ever going to get back into the saddle, or if you even want to? And in fact, you kind of start to be afraid of horses? Well a good friend would tell you it’s okay to go for another a ride. A really good friend might try to help you up into another saddle. But the best kind of friend of all is the one who gets down on all fours to let you ride them instead.

Or alternatively, another kind of amazing friend is the one who tells you that they will beat up the horse that threw you, and even though you know that they never would – and you wouldn’t want them to either – it’s still very sweet.

Other good friends will buy you lap dances in unrelated incidents. I have some pretty awesome friends. I have also made new friends on the internet of a feminist bent. I like them.

What else? Kane came to stay this past weekend, and Heather’s coming tomorrow. There’s derby on the weekend and apparently there won’t be any of the slow derby bullshit, which is good. There have been  a lot of parties. Thanks to Sunday movie nights with the Lovehawks, I’ve done pretty well on the #11in’11 front. Work is busy. Social life is busy. Money is tight due to car repairs and continuing to pay off my credit card debt and just, you know, life. I like that it is turning into autumn, although I like sunshine too. Gin has become the drink of 2011, apparently, with all the G&Ts at New Year’s, and now the Gossip Ginger Gimlets and Gossip Girl Wednesdays.

Webstock was amazing but of course you already knew that. It was so great to see all the good people from out of town that I only get to see like once a year like Walter, and to learn so much and talk so much that I thought my jaw was going to fall off. Turns out, $100 trip to the dentist later, that it’s stress which makes me square my jaw. Ahh well.

I don’t really feel like I’m accomplishing a great deal, but I don’t feel like I’m not, either. I’ve dealt with all this uterus bullshit. I’ve got my work back on track after stuff that we won’t go into. My protective streak for people may cause ruckuses, but nothing that’s not fixable. I am managing to hold on to and repair relationships with people who are important to me. I am doubtless behind in my communication with people, but hopefully this post will help. Essentially, apart from the horse-riding metaphor, there isn’t really all that much to say. And that’s okay.

The Yaz is gone, and I am me again. It is a glorious feeling. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t spend a large part of last night bawling my eyes out, but let’s get to that bit when we get to it.

I had a quiet week at work, which was well-needed because I’ve been working very hard and doing lots of things and stuff. Friday wasn’t so quiet, because we had All Rap All The Time Afternoon, and then we had a work cocktail challenge. I led the S&M team, although we were calling ourselves the Bucaneers (we’d had a pirate-themed week, because that’s what you do when you get sent funny pictures of your cow-orks dressed up at conferences), and we made a chargrilled pineapple margarita served in a pineapple, and then a Yo Ho Ho & a Damson Plum, which I based on my McKenzie training at Cupcakes & Cocktails. Turns out that was a mistake, and our drinks didn’t win because they were “too perfect” and “well-balanced”. What a travesty! An outrage! We also got called “middle of the road” which is probably the first and only time I’ll ever be called that. Luckily, we had to finish off all the rest of the ingredients, and so a very enjoyable night was spent playing Foozeball (We’ve started a Women’s Foozeball League, because we play slower, and squeal more), and sitting on bean bags on a balcony high above Courtenay Place. I ended up smoking cigarettes because people kept giving me theirs to hold while they went in for more beer, ugh. And my phone fell out of my bra and into the toilet. Whoops! Luckily Kim has given me her old one. I ended up going home via the Hawthorn Lounge to drop off their nomination in the TAWAs, and they knew who I was and gave us a discount. I am totally the Empress of the Internet.

The next afternoon I somehow managed to drag my rather under-the-weather ass into Monterey to eat their delicious brunch and gossip with Kelly. Once again, I had TAWA-business to take care of, and once again, knowing people paid off. We sat there for a couple of hours because we weren’t allowed to get pie until I had finished the sudoku, and I was seriously impaired. It took me approximately ten minutes to check in on Foursquare using Kelly’s phone because I was such a mess. The table squeaked like a kitten under my elbow and we giggled our heads off at that, and also at my ridiculous story of hilariousness, and also many other things.

I rediscovered this week how nice it is to kiss a boy, instead of the usual girls, and now I’m hoping for a groping. Someone feel me up, please?

Saturday night I spent at Lisa’s, making cheeseburgers in my slip because it was so very hot, and watching Community. She said I overhyped ‘Modern Warfare’. I don’t know how that’s even possible. Nevertheless, it was a very pleasant way to spend the evening. And then I came home to this:

Not the best picture, but suffice to say that the table on my porch had been knocked over, and there was blood ALL OVER the steps and dripping off the wall. My first thought was that it wasn’t blood, it was plum syrup, but the smell, it was intense and disgusting and terrifying. I actually was afraid to walk into the house, wondering if someone had decided to put a hit on me or something, and then I saw the cat fur all over the the place and started to panic. Sebastian usually comes running to meet me when I’ve been out for a while, but he wasn’t there. He was nowhere in the house, and didn’t come when I called and called. I totally freaked out and started bawling. I tried to call Karen since she was the nearest, but my phone wouldn’t connect the call. I started freaking out all over Twitter instead, until I heard a mewling, and Seb was at the front door. He was covered in blood and was acting really funny, so I tried to clean up his wounds as best as possible, and tried to calm down, after crying some more in relief that he appeared to be okay. But he was way lethargic, and was hyperventilating, and there was so much blood all over the porch. Some internet checking made me terrified he was going into shock, so I decided to take him to the after-hours vet – except of course I couldn’t call them. Luckily, Daniil was online and he rang them for me, so at 2am I loaded Seb into his cat cage and drove him out to Ngauranga. Seb didn’t meow once in the car, but I was crying enough for both of us.

The vet was grumpy with me, which seems a bit ridiculous, given that’s his actual job and heaven knows I paid enough. His computer wouldn’t start properly, and he wouldn’t even look at Seb until he’d filled in the form, so I stood in reception crying, Seb breathing way too fast under my hands, hoping he wasn’t going to die while the horrible man took his time with formalities. Finally we got into the examination room, where the vet put clothes pegs on Seb’s scruff to keep him calm, and we shaved off a bit of his fur so the vet could look at his chest wound. “He brought this on himself,” said the vet, “he clearly started this fight”. His bedside manner was somewhat lacking. It was 2.30am in the morning, I was clearly extremely upset and panicked, and I did NOT need to have my cat blamed for the fight. I tried to explain how much blood there was, but the vet was all “oh, it probably looked like a lot because it might have sprayed everywhere – an artery has been nicked, but it’s probably not very much at all”. Um, I cleaned up the clots of it, buddy, yeah, there was a lot of blood. Anyway, he gave Seb a shot of painkiller, and some antibiotics, and some pills for me to give to him for a week, and I paid $249. I was supposed to keep Seb inside for 24 hours but he slipped out while I was in the bathroom. I was awake til 6am worrying. Of course he’s fine today. I am never having kids.

Today I cleaned up the spare room cos Heather’s coming to stay, yay, and made righteous mac’n cheese and fuck yeah slaw and rhubarb pie for the LoveHawks. Kim gave me a recut of my Hubris necklace and wouldn’t let me pay her for it, proving once again that I win at life sometimes with the wonderful people I have met on the internet. We watched FoxFire which was DREADFUL, and kind of awesome at the same time. Jason claims he wrote it when he was 16. I’m so glad those crazy kids have moved to my neighbourhood. I love my weekend rituals.

This week is going to be crazy. Last week I saw a huge part of my recent everything played out in a slideshow, and now on Friday is the Fifth The Annual Wellingtonista Awards. Woah! You’re coming along, right?

There is going to be an immense amount of whining and wailing and weeping in this entry, so if you’re not down with that, go read this instead. Caution: contains insanely adorable children in tutus.

Things have taken a swing for the worst for me lately. I know it is at least partially related to the miniscule trickle of blood that’s occasionally dripping from my cunt, but really, $200 parking fines, and discovering that WINZ won’t let me sign up for the dole unless I go to that horrible degrading seminar AGAIN and needing new a new flatmate, and still no jobs on the horizon, and continued burglar-related crap and assorted personal dramas and the very very small amount of money that I have left in my account are really piling up. I’m not coping very well with it. I have hid in bed for the past two days, and unless something drastic happens, I imagine that’s probably where I will spend tomorrow as well, at least until I go to Petone to eat cupcakes.

Here’s a story that is NOT the centre of my problems, but it is something that is weighing on my mind in the grand scheme of things. You know that boy who slept over in a post recently? And how although that was strange for me, it was actually quite nice? He stopped replying to my texts after that, and then didn’t show up for roller derby. Perhaps he’s too busy winking at my friends via online dating sites the day after he fucked me (Wellington is a very small place). I know there was no contract or anything, but it still seems like a shame. I thought we got on well, and that my gut instinct was right in thinking he was a nice guy. Oh well. I could tell him this in person but of course I have deleted his number so I won’t drunkenly passively aggressively text him. Does this mean that I shouldn’t trust my gut instinct then?  I know that my gut instinct is correct in thinking that the boy I kissed this past Saturday is trouble, but oh, what a kiss. And then on another note there’s Anji asking me if I think people are crazy because they’re crazy or because they like me. And there’s me wondering if I hold my cards too closely to my chest at all times because I don’t want to get hurt again and wondering whether or not I use not being over someone I could never have had anyway as a way to hold others at a distance.  I guess I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat, and lord knows I’ve been complaining enough lately about people who tell stories in a non-linear non-sequitarial fashion.

So what have I been up to lately? Last week there was tea and cake with Chrisana which was lovely because I hadn’t seen her in a very long time and I very much enjoy her company. There was making economic decisions to go home and sit by myself on the Friday night instead of drinking with the Wellingtonista. I painted signs for Roller Derby with Miss Fur. There was a crafternoon with Megan in which I made the aforementioned tutus that I sent to Maree’s daughters. She made me a skirt to wear to the roller derby on Saturday, so I looked suitably hot:

I got to meet Kim who took this photo and Laura for the first time before roller derby, so that was awesome. Anji’s friend stuck her tongue in when I gave her  birthday kiss, and another girl pulled me into a toilet stall, pushed me up against the wall and felt me up quite roughly. It was kind of fantastic and hilarious at the same time, because there were a lot of people around and she was pretty loud. Loud enough that she ended up getting kicked out of the derby, and I had to leave the afterparty really early to go meet up with her and her friend in his hotel room. The baths at the Duxton are not as good as the baths at the Museum Hotel, I can report but the staff are great at finding super glue for you if your boots are coming apart. It is strange however, that they let people smoke inside. Even the Garden Bar where we went and danced to drum & bass doesn’t let you do that. Then when I took a taxi home the driver didn’t have any credit card slips so he let me pay with a Farmers voucher instead. Mint.

Today my fitted sheet blew off the line when I was doing laundry and now it is gone. That seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to happiness for me so I stopped doing chores and went back to bed. I’m tired of all this shit. I just need some catharsis and probably to have a talk with someone so I don’t end up screwing them over. But for now, I will watch many many episodes of Weeds in a row, pull the duvet over my head, and sleep some more until this mood goes away.

I can’t sleep right now because the wind is too loud, so I might as well write my journal, yes?

Let me start with pictures of cupcakes. The lovely Emma came over to lend me her neat handwriting expertise, and together we assembled these beauties:

If you click the photo, you’ll get to my flickr page where I’ve tagged each cupcake with what it says

We had a tremendous amount of fun coming up with the dirty words and I also got to say to her things like “give me an orgasm” and “I love your meat flaps” which is always a guarantee of a good time. The cupcakes were for Bad Tom’s Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know party, which we will get to in time, but first I have to talk about #opengovt.

On Saturday I went to an Open Government Bar Camp, because I am a big nerd. In order to appear less governmenty, I wore really bright-coloured clothing:

I am so in love with my new tights from welovecolors.com, although I think the footless ones fit better than the footed ones. I’m pretty sure I am going to need to order them in more colours than just kelly green, scarlet red and fuschia at some stage. Anyways. Bar Camp. I knew a tremendous amount of people there, and even more people knew me. I tried to remind people that we weren’t entirely representative of the rest of New Zealand in that normal people don’t tend to spend sunny Saturdays cooped up in the National Library of their own free will, and I think I did quite well at that. I also ate some really tasty proscuitto. I will write about it more on my portfolio site sometime soon, probably. My social media expertise was paid for by drinks at the Loaded Hog afterward where the bar man kept giving me over-pours, probably because I was one of very few women there.

But I couldn’t stay and drink free booze all night there, because I had a party to get to. So I jumped in a taxi and went up to Karen’s house in order to get dressed up, meet Chiara and have more drinks. This is what Karen and I dressed up as:

If that’s unclear to you, click here for the reveal.

Bambi and Anji also dressed up as Bad Tom, who was suitably impressed and perplexed. I put a naughty schoolgirl spin on my outfit, which proved to be quite handy, not least because the amount of Mary-Kate & Ashley available enabled people (well, maybe just Tom) to do lines of snuff off my breasts.

Photo stolen from Bad Tom’s flickr.

Did I mention that there was homemade laudanum? And absinthe? And a general all around dirty atmosphere? Here are some more pics to show off the mood in the room:

I like it how it appears that Chiara is about to give me a lapdance in this photo, but she didn’t actually. I did watch her and Anna Jane shake and shimmy and undulate in the hallway. There was kissing booth malarky. I also pashed a drag queen named Candy. At one stage I found myself on Tom’s crazy comfy bed with a cute girl and a guy I used to work with. We spilled absinthe on his sheets and tried to shut the door but people kept walking in on us. It is somewhat disconcerting to be making out with someones while your sister stares at you through the window. Still, I got to tell the guy that I’d wanted to fuck him because I thought he was kind of misogynistic, so that was amusing, although he protested that he wasn’t. And then later on the cute girl and I went home with the duck. It was somewhat of a strange night, and I am paying for it now with a cut-open thumb from cocktail making, and bruised knees from god knows what. Ahh debauchary, how glad I am you are in my life.

My ambition was always to use the time between jobs to come off the zopiclone, so for the past month I was gradually cutting down my dosage. I’ve talked before about how my shrink has gone AWOL (as Shirley put it the other day “trust you to get a crazy shrink”) so I can’t get new prescriptions, and so about a week ago I ran out completely. I had been on half pills for a week, so I was ready for it. Or so I thought.

The other day I didn’t get to sleep until 11. That’s 11am. Last night I was still awake and making sandwiches around 4am. When I finally do sleep, I do so until all hours of the afternoon because I don’t have a solid reason to get up in the morning. I think I might become a phone sex operator for a service in the UK or something, I might as well use my powers for good, right?

It’s been interesting though, watching twitter falling silent as first NZ and then Australia goes to sleep. I’ve learned that listening to pod casts doesn’t help me, and that there are only so many hours one can watch Whedon shows or read young adult fiction. I’ve learned that if you know you’re going to be sneaking out afterwards  because you’re not going to sleep that you should make sure that you throw all your clothes in the one place to make finding them in the dark easier. I’ve learned that the benefit of having friends on random morning shifts or up with babies is that occasionally you’ll get to pass twitters in the night and that’ll help you not feel quite as alone as watching the sun come up by yourself tends to make you feel.

Other than the sleeping thing, and the unemployment thing, time is passing rather nicely. I mean, it would be nice to sleep properly so I could achieve more during the day, but my social circle is pleasing right now, and I have numerous events to look forward to. People are providing me with delicious food and delicious company, and that is nice. I am struggling to not spend money which is annoying now that I have so much more time in which to spend it, but I’m cooking more for myself at home which is pleasing and cost-effective. I made some killer blueberry & almond pikelets the other day, for example. And with the eating of the vegetables, and with some photos of Jon Hamm on vacation that Jezebel did warn me would tug at my ovaries came a brief day of bloodening, and I’m still glassy and stomach-crampy when I orgasm so I know that there’s another period coming soon, which means two in the space of a month, which is like, woah, that’s what normal people do. It’s somewhat pleasing to me.

I still have miles to go on tagging all my hubris entries and getting that squared away, and I need to build my portfolio site as well. But there are so many upcoming events! Flatwarmings and Word Camps and Bar Camps and Bad parties, and birthdays of Karen and so  on and so forth. Oh, and Vanuatu, in less than three weeks. That pleases me tremendously.

I am no longer a public servant. This means that I can therefore say whatever I want. Because oh yes, I had totally been holding back before, right?

I have been without a job for 11 days now. I’m applying for things, networking through Girl Geek Dinners, booking a trip to Vanuatu. In total white whines Karen and I took ages to decide which resort we wanted to stay at, and then in the end we’re staying at the other one because our first choice only had a queen bed and we don’t want to share. We’re going on August 18, which is a million years away, and it makes me sad because it will mean missing the ONYA awards that I have already bought a beautiful dress for. Still, tropical holiday, you can’t really argue with that.

Saying goodbye at work was really sad. I cried at Green Land when they said they didn’t have any more scones and was very very embarrassed and it was totally my iPod’s fault for playing “So Here We Are” and “The Funeral” together. I had some quiet tears in the bathroom. Yenping cried more publicly. I was happy I got to make out with someone on my desk before I left though. Our goodbye function at the Backbencher got very drunk and raucous and we ended up going to the The’Ho afterwards, and then back to mine because all the bars were shut but there was more booze at my house. There was very stupid ill-thought-out clumsy fumblings in my bed afterwards (“you’re not going to twitter about this, are you?”) and terrible hangovers, and then I had an all-day battle with The Man, by which I mean my shrink who conveniently got sick again right when I needed a new script, and the receptionist at my doctor’s is the living embodiment of the Computer Says No lady, but luckily the practice nurse who returned my call was able to understand what it was that I needed, and so I got a two week script out of them – but then even though I’d rung the week before, my new pharmacy didn’t have any lexapro in stock so I had to wait until the end of the day to get my scripts, and then it was 5.30 and I had to drive to the house I’d booked in Martinborough. I was very very shakey and hungover and it was so misty going over the Rimutakas and I was on the verge of having mad panic attacks the whole time.

I discovered that in my shakiness I had packed one sock and no pyjama pants, but there was a gas fire, and a glorious big bathtub, and I had packed delicious food, so that was fantastic. I had intended to have two whole days with the only time I spoke being when I sang to the rubber duckie in the bath, but the house owners came over to check that all was well, and the woman in the thunderpants store turned out to be someone I used to work with, and the girl in the cafe felt compelled to ID me when I had a glass of wine with my onion soup, and the butcher wanted to complain about his day, so blah blah blah, but most importantly, I was free of the internet and the associated incestuous clusterfuck that is Wellington for a good 36 hours, and that was bloody lovely. I resolved to try and have a twitter-free day every week (that has yet to happen) and I took stock of things and realised that sleeping with other people isn’t really chasing away the memories of someone else as much as I would like it to, so perhaps I should stop doing that. Spoiler alert: I don’t stop.

Back into Wellington I got straight back amongst the clusterfuck by dressing up in a corset ala Moulin Rouge, and going to Phillip’s to drink absinthe. Absinthe was a strange thing to drink then, because it made my mind seem even sharper, while my motorskills became blurred. Nevertheless, I honoured my new intentions by leaving around midnight. The next night I went to Bambi’s drinks at the Southern Cross, drank ridiculously large amounts of red wine and brought home the boy that I had fancied like mad last year – (“you’re not going to blog about this, are you?”). Upon reflection, I suspect what the real issue I’ve had with the last three people that I’ve slept with is that there was very little attempt by any of them to actually seduce me. It just happened. I want the flirting and the touching and the tingles back, not just the inevitability of the cold weather. It has hardened my resolve to hold out for a hero.

Kane came to stay for a couple of nights and it was lovely to see him. It was also nice to have someone more shockable than Lisa around. I cooked some great food for them. I’m trying to get all budgety so I didn’t go out to Kylie’s farewell drinks last night – which is probably just as well from the sound of things. I’m paying Anna Jane to do some cut’n pasting of my old journal to put it all into wordpress which I hope will be done before July 18 when you’re all coming to my party, right? And tonight I’m going to a dinner party at Theresa’s when I don’t think I’ll know most of the people, so I’m nervous about that, but hopefully it will all be okay. I made chocolate mousse.

So that’s me, really. Doing lots of laundry, trying to tidy my room, looking for work, looking for love in all the wrong places. You know, the usual. Hurrah.

Last week was totally exhausting. Actually, the week before that was exhausting as well. But I can say quite definitely that it also contained one of my top career highlights so far, so that’s pretty awesome, right? Should we mix it up and go topically, or go chronologically like usual-ish? I guess if we go chronologically, I will remember more about my time in Sydney, so let’s start there, shall we? And if you don’t like that, then perhaps you could leave me a comment to register your discontent. Rad.

Sydney and FullCodePress

So, as you will no doubt recall, I tried out for Full Code Press, and didn’t make the team, so the lovely Tash suggested that I come along anyway as volunteer. It meant a flight at some ridiculous time in the morning, but also my first Koru Club experience in 15 years or so. I love Air NZ’s newish inscreen entertainment screens, especially since a flight to Sydney involves stupidly long amounts of time on the tarmac. I got to meet all the Code Blacks people that I hadn’t already met, and it made me chuckle how we all had webstock satchels.

My hotel wouldn’t let me check in early, so I went and had a walk around Darling Harbour, having breakfast, reading the (tabloidy) paper, drinking average coffee and enjoying it being t shirt weather. I went back up to the hotel and they still didn’t have a room ready, so I sat sulking in the lobby for a bit before I rode the monorail and went and got a very nice pedicure inside the mall. And then, finally, I could check in. This was my room:

The bedroom looked out into the super huge giant atrium, and the living room had these awesome nighttime views:

I like views of the city at night. I also like getting to finally have naps, and wake up and have Kate B be there, and I like going swimming with her, and then drinking wine with her and looking through her portfolio. I like that her web work is pretty much the opposite of mine, it being all advertising, all flash, whereas I am all advocating for accessibility, in theory if not quite so much in practice.

Anyways, so Kate and I sorted out our hair and jumped in a taxi to go and meet up with her friend Rob and The Mayor of Newtown, at a pub called Cooper’s that was not dissimilar to the Southern Cross with its outdoor terrace. There we compared handwriting, broke glasses and spent a very long time trying to decide where to have dinner. The Mayor’s initial suggestion of a place across the seat was vetoed by Kate on account of the bad lighting, and my criteria was that it needed to have wine. Eventually we set off for a different Vietnamese place, but it was closed, so we went to find a different one. King Street is almost exactly like K’Road, in terms of architecture and people and shops and eateries. We found a Vietnamese restaurant that may have been called Viet Maison, which had a Tiki-Bar although I didn’t see that initially, and OH MY GOD, we ate the most fantastic food – soft shell crab with garlic butter, salt & pepper eggplant, crispy pork hot pot, duck pancakes, lemongrass tofu, coconut rice, oh my god oh my god oh my god. It was so fresh and amazing. I want to eat there every day. Can’t we swap half Wellington’s Malaysian restaurants for some more Vietnamese places? Please? Kate broke another glass, and so we went to another bar called Zanzibar. The Mayor bumped into a friend of his who was in a band and owned his own tiki shack. I’d had enough wine that I was struggling to not imply that the friend was in INXS. It was 1am before I knew it. It was very much fun.

The next day was FULLCODEPRESS so I found my way down to the Conference Centre, and then into the Exhibition Centre, which is the largest building I have ever seen. It’s like, a kilometre long, at least. The FCP stuff was taking place in the middle of all the shiny technology exhibits, so it looked like this:

I hung around for a bit while they were just getting started, and was given access to the official FCP blog, and then I went and met my cousin Jacinta for lunch. She took me to a really lovely Thai place past Chinatown, and I shamed myself by being unable to finish my chili and basil tofu because it was too hot. Laaaaamer.

Another swim and a nap later, I was ready for the FCP lock-in. My role was to blog and twitter about it using the #fcp09, to talk to the nice judges, and to try and sniff out mysterious smells in the media room. It was lots of fun. I also enjoyed making Clint from Rainbow Youth dance for me. Okay, so I wasn’t really helping anyone very much at all, except in my capacity as entertainer. I still felt good about being involved. But not so good that when 2am rolled around and people started sleeping that I didn’t feel stupid for being there when I had a nice hotel across and up the road waiting for me, so I found a security guard to let me out and had a heart-pounding but brightly lit walk back.

I had wanted to get back to FCP by 11am in time for the finish, but that zopiclone, she is a hard task mistress, and it was not to be. Instead I went and ate barramundi in the sunshine. That was lovely – trying to find the FCP annoucements was not so much fun. In fact, I felt somewhat like I was in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix when he needs to get a piece of paper signed. Not a single “information” desk in all of the kilometres of building actually had the information. In fact, a couple of them gave me unformation, and sent me miles off in the wrong direction. Luckily I eventually found some of the judges, but not before I had discovered a conference called “What causes happiness?” (apparently, cupcakes for afternoon tea causes happiness) which would be a nice counterpoint to the conference I’d see the next day at the Powerhouse Museum called “Depression in older people”. Anyways. I got there just in time to hear the judging, which was really really interesting to find out what makes a site good, according to the experts. And The CodeBlacks won! Hurray us! And hurray charity, as I wrote about in my work blog. Etc. So really what I should write about now was the cat-herding required to get everyone to the Pump House for drinks, and then off to the Spanish area for dinner, but everywhere was full so we ended up in a really old Greek restaurant where the lamb was tasty but I suspect that the vegetables had been cooking probably since it opened in the olden days. People appeared to be flagging so I taxied back to my hotel, but they actually stayed up drinking until 2am. Good for them!

The next day was a nice sleep in, a leisurely checkout, then freshly squeezed juice to treat my swineflu/airconditioning flu, and i set off to the Powerhouse Museum. More walking. I was determined to get there because I’ve always been impressed with Seb Chan’s work, and I really enjoyed it, although the ghost figures it used were spooky, and there were a lot of school children loitering about. Who are they to enjoy the culture? Pah! I was hungry and their cafe was uninspiring so I walked down to the madness that is Paddy’s Market, purchased a light shade and two Chinese cigarette posters (in case we ever start an opium den in the tiki shack), and kept looking because I didn’t feel like foodcourt Asian. In fact, I walked all the way back to Darling Harbour and made my way down all the cafes, looking for a plate of fish’n chips that would be under $30. In the end, I came to a place with an adequate bbq, and beers that I guzzled down, but because I had so much time left and I didn’t want to walk anymore, i plonked my fat ass down at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe to eat a degustation plate by myself. Mmmmm. I left with a sea of brown floating around in my eyes, it was so intense. Back to my hotel to collect my bags and be collected by the shuttle driver, and into Sydney Airport. I made my way directly to the MAC counter as soon as I spotted it, where with the lady’s help I purchased a Russian Red red lipstick, but she lacked a matching liner and advised me to look at other brands. I also bought a compact of colours from their special collection that no doubt I did not need but I dearly wanted. I pulled up a seat at the bar, and strangely enough, the other NZers found me there. I watched In Bruges on the plane, and thoroughly enjoyed it, along with the pie I got. I also thoroughly enjoyed getting home to my own bed.

Cupcakes and Mini Webstock

Now I’m not sure if you remember, but after Webstock earlier this year, I made cupcakes for Tash and Ben and Mike and Deb to say thank you so much for their hard work. Well, it turned out that they liked them so much that they hired me to make 100 cupcakes for their third birthday party. Here’s a photo of how some of that looked:

Because I am slightly insane, i decided to make six flavours – vanilla w chocolate frosting, mocha, lemon & cream cheese, mixed berry & white chocolate, gluten-free chocolate and almond, and vegan pina colada. I ended up pretty much drowning in batter and my stomach hurts just thinking about the leftover icing in the fridge!

The Webstock Mini night made it all worthwhile though. It was a lovely chance to get really dressed up, hang out with my besties, try to corrupt Alan, and heckle people drunkenly via Twitter. Even if i did end up drink at the Malt House – at least they had signs up saying they were renovating the male bathrooms and were hopefully removing their incredibly misogynistic urinals.

#GOVIS09 and twicking up

That was the Tuesday. On the Wednesday I was at work until after 11pm, duvet and all, struggling to sumarise 18 months of work into one 34 minute slide presentation. According to the Twitter feedback, I did quite well (scroll down) – or here or ,here – the problems of multiple identities! Once I managed to get some proper cafenet access and had a chance to read all that, well, I was just completely blown away and may have had a little cry. I definitely had a hugely swollen head and cut’n paste the praise into an email I sent to my whole family. It was just so amazingly nice to be acknowledged for the work I do – even though, or especially because there’s like 40 days left of me working there. It’s a tiny bit of a “oh, are you sure you’re doing the right thing, SSC?” and also a “I know that I am smart and talented and can be employable”. There were drinks, and I met a stalker who brought me wine then there was dinner at Roxy. It was tasty and entertaining, even if I had to talk to Australians for ages. Oh god the pain of it all!

The next day at the conference, I felt much much more secure and safe and smug, and more people wanted to talk to me. I even started calling myself a ‘social media expert’ but you must believe that I was saying it as if I was saying “I’m Rick James, Bitch!” Nat’s closing speech was of course my favourite of them all since I missed Matt’s but his was very highly regarded too. It was fun. I learnt things.

And then there were drinks. And more drinks. And a lot of fish on sticks, and hot roast beef sandwiches, and homemade pistachio ice cream, and more drinks, And then I ended up going to Hummingbird for the Tweet Up, and then I went to China Delight for dinner with the Toms and some new friends, and then we went to Hummingbird for a drink or two more. Alisa left my old work to manage the bar there so it was nice to catch up with her.

My weekend and the future

There has been a lot of sleeping and trying to stay warm. There has been feasts at Siem Reap. There’s been a lot of twitter time. There’s been a lot of duveting. That’s really about it. Tomorrow I go for an eye example, since glasses are still subsidised at work. Then on Tuesday I’m going to EAP to plan for the future. After that, well, who knows? I could use some quiet times but I’m not seeing a whole lot of that happening any time soon. I am more confident about being hireable based on GOVIS though. Career highlights are nice.

Sleeping and so forth

It is odd to have bedded two people in such a short space of time, (although my record is still 3 in two weeks in 2003) because of the contrast between the old and the new. It’s also redonkulous that I’ve bitched and moaned about wanting to be able to actually have sleepovers, but when it comes down to it, I had to leave a warm bed and go out into the cold cold night because of how I am physically incapable of sleeping without taking zopiclone. Doing a line-by-line comparison would be amusing for me but also totally totally inappropriate, so I will just leave the public exposure of private things to the contrast between my necklaces clacking together as my head moved back and forth, and the moment of having a lover gently unclasp my necklace, which seems to be even more of an intimate act.

Dear people who made Webstock happen:

I think I love you. Can it please be Webstock every day? Even if we would all die from over-knowledging, over-caffinating and over-drinking?

I got home today sometime after 5pm. It’s been a hell of a week. I will update more when I have napped.

• The Innovation Workshop
• Day One
• Day Two

The Innovation Workshop

My first Webstock twitter (The WS is to send it to the Webstockbo so that everyone subscribed could read it): ” Ws I am late for my Scott Berkun workshop. I find nothing innovative about mornings! “

Despite having stressed out about the bus being late, I stopped off at the Dixon Street Deli for coffee, before heading off to the Town Hall to check in. The lovely Jeff was on the door, which is always a good way to start, and things got even better when I was handed my webstock bag. So sexy! And so filled with intriguing things! I took my bag and my coffee upstairs, and found Amanda waiting in the foyer for the workshop to begin. I flicked my way through the brochure, marveling at the beautiful design of it all, and tried to figure out what talks I wanted to go to. And then the workshop began, and things came alive again.

I should say here that I had been having a really rough couple of weeks at work and in my life in general. This is why there’s been no updates on Hubris. Moving proved to be such a stressful experience that I stopped going to the gym and stopped taking my meds properly. It was of course that stupid downward circle spiral that I periodically get stuck in. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t functioning, and that coupled with the rather large project that I’ve been struggling with at work, and how hard that’s been to launch has made me pretty despairful. Before Webstock began I forced myself to fill my pill box properly, so that I could go back to 30mg instead of 20, and so yes, there’s that working in my favour again. That said, Scott Berkun was so fucking amazing that even if I hadn’t been on my proper dosage, I still would have had my world utterly rocked.

He started out by showing us slides of things we see every day- big macs, arches, browsers, google, and an assortment of other things, and asked which of those we thought were innovations. Then he explained how they all were, and that every successful innovation will eventually be taken for granted, and that its value may only be obvious after it has been created. He also suggested that if people are using the word innovation, it probably isn’t happening. I have pages and pages of notes that I don’t want to write out in full here (I’ll stick them on my work wiki though) but essentially, he talked about the process of innovation, and where things fall down. That was really great for me, because I was able to slot in my work project, and go “oh wow, apparently I’m not the only one who ever has any problems”. That sounds simple, but it has been really hard to see. He also mentioned that old “Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration” saying, that you would normally expect to see on the poster of some lame cow-orker, but it didn’t sound trite or cliched from him, it sounded like the truth. Oh yes, perhaps I am buying into a cult here or something, but it was just SO GREAT.
@johubris says <3 the branding, <3 the sandwiches and most importantly am feeing good about my big project again! 10:34 AM February 12, 2008

I was sitting at a table with Amanda and with Mike Brown and Anna and Belinda from SPARC, so it was nice to know people around me. I was introduced to Kris, and it turns out that he’s the brother of the guy I work with. Small world! At one stage, we all had to contribute random words, and then we had to pick three and create a new company with them. We created Robert’s Ecoterrorist Adventures, it was awesome. And he made us come up with ideas for the worst cellphone in the world, so that we could work backwards from there to create a great product. Really nice ways of changing thinking.

johubris Ws the couches at the town hall are for napping on, right? Being re-enthused by scott berkun is FTW,but i’m so tired! 12:54 PM February 12, 2008 from txt

At morning tea we had rolled sandwiches and friands. There were mountains and mountains of friands, but the sandwiches ran out quickly. They were mighty tasty though. At lunch we had a buffet that had the added distinction of having a written-out menu by the plates. It’s always nice to know what you are eating. I mention this because everyone who went to Webstock in 2006 talked about the food. And also because I like to talk about food. The conference rooms were nice because they were old, and stately, instead of being all bland like you might expect. I wrote pages and pages and pages of notes. Scott asked if anyone was having a bad day, and I didn’t raise my hand, but when he asked if anyone was having a bad week, I did. He got the whole room to applaud me and then asked me what story I wanted him to tell. Awww. Thanks Scott! Not just for the applause, but for just the sheer awesomeness of it all. Without transcribing all my notes it’s probably really hard to express just how inspiring the talk was, so I suppose you’ll need to take my word for it, or check out his work yourself!

johubris ws I wish it was Webstock tomorrow, and that I didn’t have to wait until Thursday for more awesome learning and company! 09:26 PM February 12, 2008 from web

The conference proper

Again, I was running late, but I stopped to get coffee anyway, not quite realising that the lovely Peoples’ Coffee people would be making free coffee all day long (we asked, and one of the charming baristas said his record was drinking 30 double espressos in one day. Woaaaaaah). I found a seat for myself at the back and chuckled at the Pulp Fiction soundtrack pumping over the sound system to hype up the crowd. Mike Brown did the introduction, showing a photo of CJ and the end of this series of twitters:

• Jo Hubris: I have two dates on Valentine’s Day. But they’re both work-related. At least there’ll be booze at Webstock, right?
• Maupuia: @johubris oh hell yes there will be booze! 12:08 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to johubris Icon_star_empty
• Ceej75: @maupuia and there better be hotties cos its v day!
  12:14 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to maupuia
• @ceej75 there will be enough alcohol that everyone will seem a hottie 12:21 PM January 10, 2008 from web in reply to ceej75

Hehe!

Nat Torkington

I’ve never met Nat before, or read anything of his work, but I’ve heard a lot about him (mostly because I’m jealous I didn’t get an invitation to Foo Camp), so I was really interested to hear what he might talk about. And now I know a whole lot about the Crimean War. My only note from his session is “www.overcomingbias.com”, so I suppose I really should look up this site. What amused me the most about his talk was that for some reason he’d chosen to use some really weird font for his presentation, and hadn’t checked it, so half the letters didn’t show up. Despite that, he was a great presenter, and I was really interested in what he had to say. Even if I’m not entirely sure what it was now that there have been so many talks on top of his. Oh, looking at the book, he was talking about the past as a way to predict the future. That makes sense.

Molly Holzschlag — Why Web Standards Aren’t

I work for the government, as you’re no doubt aware, so it is important for me that any sites that I work on conform to web standards,and that they validate (Hubris doesn’t validate, by the way, but that’s the flickr and twitter codes that fuck it up, as far as I’m aware). Other than that, standards really aren’t my area, so I admit to tuning out a bit during this talk. Molly was clearly very very passionate about it though, and CJ said that the Webstock IRC channel was lighting up during her talk because she was saying some controversial things. Awesome! And the line that I took away from it is that web standards isn’t validating like editing isn’t spellchecking, which is a fantastic simile for someone word-obsessed like me to understand.

After Molly spoke, it was morning tea time, with little sandwiches and mountains of mini sweet muffins. I caught up with CJ and Frances and looked around at the various booths set up by sponsors, deciding to investigate them further at lunchtime. And then, because I was trying to make sure I had a written-content focus, I went to see

Rachel McAlpine – Look Ma, no quills!

To be honest, I was rather disappointed with her presentation. I felt like it was a little bit all over the place, and didn’t really have a focus or direction. I did come away with a few tips, like that 20% of people have a low literacy rate, that only professional communicators are trained to communicate and that everyone else is just thrown in the deep end as we’ve moved away from blue collar work, and that you should check your work’s readability with a Flesch plugin.
johubris Ws dear webstockers, remember to get cash out at lunch to buy valentines for CJ and I at Craftstock! 11:25 AM February 14, 2008 from txt

Peter Morville – Ambient Findability and the Future of Search

My very first note from Peter is “Don’t throw away your org chart, but provide other options too”. Oh hell yes. I’ve struggled in past jobs looking after websites whose navigation has been built around the organisational chart, which makes little sense to anyone on the outside. I want everyone in the world to know that often isn’t a very good idea! He also used the line “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” which is so true. As our haystacks get bigger, how can we make bigger needles?

And then it was lunch. Mmmm lunch! I loaded up my plate and went and talked to Belinda and some nice people from the National Library. Someone was eating ice cream, and so I found my way to a freezer full of it, sweet little tubs from Kapiti. Mmmmmm! I had a big decision to make in regards to which talk I should go to after lunch, but luckily, I decided to go to:

Liz Danzico – The Framework Age

Damn! It was so fantastic! The idea behind it is that assorted Web 2.0 aps provide a framework for communities to grow off, like jazz music has a loose frame compared to that of classical music so there’s room for things to happen. She talked about social patterns, and hacking of public signs like the New York Subway (adding in “downtown” to train routes that don’t specify things), and oh, it was just so so wonderful. She brought all these random strings together and wove them into a beautiful tapestry, and I could have listened to her talk all day. But unfortunately, it was only 50 minutes long. I really need to look her up online and see if I can get more ideas out of her.
johubris Ws Liz is talking about how classical music leaves no room for participation. @ceej75 is man-hunting, @darren is playing bingo. WEBSTOCK IS SOFA KING RAD 01:47 PM February 14, 2008

Kelly Goto – Getting unstuck. Moving from Web 1.0 to 2.0

Kelly’s talk was all about ways of finding your “AHA!” moment, and moving into “the flow” when you’re just working on the highest possible level. She was a total bundle of energy, and was one of the many presenters who made me go “Damn, I want to be her when I grow up!”

Michael Lopp – Primal software development

Michael works for Apple, and he said that they don’t do secrecy – they do theatre, which made me laugh almost as much as when he asked how many people had iPhones, and when a whole bunch of people (like seriously, many many people) raised their hands he was like “hmmm, they’re not available here though…”. He had some good ideas about the types of people that you should have on a project team, although it did have a bit much of an American perspective – if you work for government, you don’t get to hire & fire really. But he had some great ideas about getting the job done.

Jason Santa Maria – Good design ain’t easy

I think this twitter sums up the awesome power of Jason Santa Maria:
Ws wow, for the first time since i was 18 i’m thinking design might be nearly as important as actual content! Go Jason! 04:47 PM February 14, 2008 from txt
His slides were beautiful, as was his idea that design tells a story. I learnt about the golden ratio of 1:1.618, and about the rule of thirds, and just marvelled at the pretty pictures. It made me happy to see Fray up on the screen cos it made me remember the olden days a million years ago of The Vision Project and how we wanted to be them.

And then, there was a fireside chat between Rowan Simpson and Sam Morgan. I liked that Sam admitted to ripping off many other people’s ideas and designs, but I was absolutely furious when he was talking about his micro-credit work, and said that they don’t lend money to men because the men would just drink and gamble it away. Way to move forward with helpful stereotypes! And he was so clearly a National supporter, and that made me bristle.

Then we had Powerpoint Idol, where presenters had to talk on a random assortment of slides, including lots of Lol Cats. Lol Cats were a reoccurring theme, of course. I liked the judging panel, of course.

And even more than the judging panel, I loved the cocktails upstairs, with Wellingtonistas selling crafts, and fun people to talk to. Eventually I went to the Phoenix Foundation with CJ and other assorted Silverstripers, and that was wonderful. We’d taken a Canadian we met (Hi Johnny!) along, and so I was like “here, the Phoenix Foundation is my country’s gift to you in exchange for the Arcade Fire”. It’s good to share. Wellington SO turned it on!

Day Two

Again, it was a rush to get there on time, and again, I opted to pick up coffee first, correctly anticipating huge lines at the Peoples’ cart. I found myself sitting at the back by myself again, but I knew by now that wasn’t a big deal, even if I did briefly have school cafeteria flashbacks over lunch with seating indecisions. But nevermind my ridiculous insecurities! On with the show!

Russell Brown – Creative Deficits & Publishing Realities

As a regular reader of Public Address, a lot of what Russell spoke about wasn’t new to me. He talked about Keith’s fisking of Deborah Codswallop, and other times when the community came together, and also about how it’s a site where commenters actually behave – at least most of the time. The part of his talk that took my interest the most was regarding online advertising, because that’s something we’re starting to give some serious thought to over at The Wellingtonista, because while we don’t want to be sell-outs, we would dearly love to have a proper site design and an entertainment fund. It’s just a question of how fifteen people who all have day jobs can walk the fine line between editorial independence and actually getting some ads on that don’t compromise our values. I need to have more conversations with Miss Biz and also Russell to resolve this.

Other interesting tidbits from Russell’s talk included the fact that 92% of New Zealanders don’t use RSS, and that he wants historical data and trends out of government websites. Another note that I have at the time was “I wonder how many of the audience here now are hearing impaired”, because for all the main speeches, there were wonderful signers standing at the side, signing away, and believe me, some of the speakers would have really made them work hard with the speed at which they spoke. Although of course, perhaps the signers were actually really crap, but I doubt it. One of the speakers did say out loud that he was wondering if he was being editorialised, but I can’t remember who that was. Anyway, I thought that was just another sign of how fucking awesome Webstock was, the way they were making it accessible, and I hope that the signers were videoed so they can be a resource as well.

johubris @verymiao Russell Brown is namedropping u (as Ball) in relation to his Webstock speech about moral panics about “bebo suicide cults”. Random! … … 08:59 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Simon Willison – OpenID and decentralised social networks

I don’t use an OpenID logon, but I found this talk much more interesting than I expected, to be honest. I thought it would be very technical, but actually, it was a lot more about the ideas of trust, and perceptions of trust and who you feel comfortable giving your password to. This relates very very strongly to the GLS, and if you don’t know what that is, you probably don’t have to worry about issues of government and authentication. I wonder if there is a way to take the good work that people have done on OpenID and run with it. What I loved about Simon’s speech was the way he personified all that he was talking about, so that OpenID was like “Hi Simon!”.
johubris Ws I just refered to Webstock as ‘this festival’ rather than a conference, and that’s so true. So much love! 10:50 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Then there was morning tea. CJ and I went and had our photos taken in the very sexy Verb.Ltd photo booth, and collected our robots, but apparently the photos of us were too ugly to go online, even though we hit the green button. That’s a shame, cos I thought they were damn cute. Ahh well.

Tom Coates – Designing for a web of data

johubris Ws Tom Coates saying “darter” instead of “dater” and using the word “thrusty” is reinforcing his cute hotness. 10:57 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Your site is not your product. Your territory is anywhere your network touches. Tom’s presentation was really really lively, good looking (He said at the end he was using Gotham Rounded Bold, for the font geek in all of us) and he talked extensively about twitter, which is something that I get. Hurrah! Plus, he had such a jones for data, it was very endearing.

johubris If i was a dirty bitch, i’d say i wanted Tom Coates to open up MY ‘data source’. And i am dirty. 11:41 AM February 15, 2008 from txt

Luke Wroblewski – Web page heirarchy

What I love love loved about Luke’s talk was his many ‘Before’ and ‘After’ shots of websites that he’d worked on. It so clearly displayed how he’d made changes, and why. Although what I didn’t like about his talk was thinking in my mind about Hubris and the Wellingtonista, and how they could be a lot clearer than they are right now. Oh well!

Amy Hoy – Usability for evil

Amy used Hitler examples! Therefore, she wins! Also, the audience were the winners, because she was fricking hilarious, while still managing to be very informative and on-to-it. Did you know that ads work better if the pretty lady keeps some of her clothes on and is presented to the left? Well now you do! Although I do question whether New Zealanders turn right when they go into shops. I seem to always turn left. Is that to do with the way we drive on our roads?

Anyways, she talked about the five types of evil that can be done, and made me yawn by saying the word “yawn” (and now as I write this, I’m yawning again) and talked about emotional buttons to add things to orders. She was great. I am terribly terribly embarrassed that I only met her the next day, half wrapped in a towel, but I suppose that’s a story for later.

The 8×5 sessions

Mike took his clothes off and I filmed it, but I think other people took better videos. Sam Farrow from NZPA made me furious, as this twitter will demonstrate:
Ws apparently news 2.0 uses Comic Sans and stereotypical crime. DO NOT WANT! 03:01 PM February 15, 2008 from txt .

EDIT: I have explained myself quite badly here. Let me paste in an email I just sent off:

Thanks for your email. I think it was certainly more well thought-out than my hasty twitter deserved in response, but obviously my flippant remarks should be better explained.

On the subject of comic sans, well, I just have an irrational hate for it as a font, especially when there were some presenters who had some truly beautiful fonts. I didn’t get the self deprecation in it, which is no doubt my bad, I was probably far too tired and over-stuffed with ideas at that stage to be a very good judge of sarcasm or irony.

As for the idea of stereotypical crime – I suppose I had this idea that Webstock was this magical shiny happy land, where everyone was working together for the greater good, but your use of a South Auckland crime as an example reminded me of the many frustrations that I feel with mainstream media in general – especially the way that Maori and Pacific Islanders have their ethnicity pointed out when they commit crimes and Pakeha don’t. And yes, I know you didn’t use any ethnic identifiers, so it’s possibly my own biases showing through when I presume that you were talking about them when you refered to South Auckland. I’m going to also put a little of the reason for my hating on Sam Morgan’s throwaway comment from the day before about how they don’t give loans to men because they’ll just drink it away. Whether or not there’s statistical evidence that says more crimes happen in South Auckland or that men drink away loans, I don’t feel like it is particularly helpful to continue to say that, unless you’re specifically talking about ways to deal with those problems. I like the idea that we’re all likely to kill or drink away our money much better than targetting specific groups, so I wish that you had used a different example is all. But again, as a representative of the NZPA, you were copping the flack for all media in general, so look at that, I’m doing exactly the thing that I hate.

I’m really sorry if my post came across as a personal attack, and I’ll fix this up. It really wasn’t meant in that way. It was just some rough ideas tossed out into the wind that I obviously didn’t explain well enough. Thank you very much for taking the time to write to me about this, it’s much appreciated.

Jimmy Hendrix came out to play on a ukelale. I can’t spell. I like the idea of the 8×5 sessions, people covered a really diverse range of subjects. I just kinda wish that more women had volunteered to do them. That aside though, I really appreciated the number of women speakers at Webstock in general, and the number of women in the audience. I thought that was hugely encouraging and awesome.

Then Scott Berkun spoke again, and it was as awesome as his workshop. I enjoyed looking around the room at everyone whose energy had been flagging during the 8X5 because afternoon tea was delayed, and seeing them being woken the fuck up, as one twitterer put it. Fan girl squees all around. And then we got afternoon tea.

Damian Conway – Web 2.odium

I wasn’t a huge fan of Damian’s Powerpoint Idol presentation – I thought it was just too obvious to go for something on sex (yeah I know, right? Me saying that is weeeeeird), but his odium was fantastic. He took the point of view that we were elitists and we wanted to protect the web from the evil Morlocks by making it not accessible or proper (what’s a morlock? I must go look it up) so he gave us a list of 28 or so ways to fuck the web up. He used humour to teach! Just like those teachers that Edna Krabapple beat to Teacher of the Year! Except actually funny. And useful. I think no matter how brilliant everyone at Webstock was, they’re probably guilty of doing at least one of the naughty things on Damian’s list, so it was very useful indeed.

But oh man, it was a long talk, and it was already time for cocktails but we still had one more speaker to get through.

Kathy Sierra – Cognitive Seduction 2.0

There seems to be a bit of a strange cult around Kathy. The first I ever heard of her was when she was getting threats online so didn’t go to a conference, and it was really hard to get those thoughts out of my head when she was talking. Admittedly also, many of my thoughts were on the bar. It had been a loooooooooooooooooong day, and my brain was overflowing with thoughts. I did like that she suggested we should give users a “WTF???” button.

And then, that was that. It was all over! Or at least the talking part was. We were released out into the foyers where waitstaff circled with trays of drinks, and massive pyramids of seafood could be found. I made my way upstairs where it was quieter and easier to get wine, and found myself talking to the Silverstripe boys, CJ and Jonny again. It was fun, we talked and ate snacks and drank and good times were had. Finally around 9pm, the doors into the main hall were opened up again and we found ourselves in a totally transformed space:

So pretty! Thanks Google, I hearby pledge to do all my searching with you in exchange for that glorious dinner. Prizes were awarded, more speechifyings were made, and wine and conversation flowed. I was expecting a buffet-style dinner, but oh no, this was fully plated goodness. Behold my beef fillet on polenta:

That’s a terrible photo, I know. Did I mention the wine? And the dessert trays with lemon tarts, noughat and something else that was also delicious? I wandered around in between courses and afterwards, talking to people and embarrassing people who gave me stern “I’ll talk to you later!” eyes. I caught up with Brendan and also Mark, who I’d known online in Vision but didn’t realise was the same person when he did his 8×5. And then it was time to go to Vintage Bar for the after-party.

I love Vintage, it’s such a pretty bar. Lots of fun was had. I talked to people I haven’t talked to for a million years, without oddness. I made new friends in the bathroom. I talked to Keith Ng lots. I talked to an assortment of new people, and I’m not sure I could match all of their names to their faces. And then there was a kiss on the stairs, and I found myself going home with one of the key speakers of the conference, except by home I mean to the Museum Hotel. And here again we find evidence of the awesomeness of the Webstock planning people – Russell and everyone else might have complained about the wifi in the hotel, but daaaaaaaaaaamn it was a nice place. The bath was as big as my couch, so big in fact that I had to take a splash. I was brought pasta and wine in the bath. SO FUCKING RAD! Best choice of speakers ever, dear Webstock. People are fantastic. I have mad love for my flatmates at this stage too:

progcunt My flatmate is awol and we,re thinking of calling the police 11:05 AM February 16, 2008 from txt

Around 12pm, I got woken up by a knocking at the door, and figuring it was housekeeping I wrapped a towel around myself and went and opened it, hiding half behind the door because the towel wasn’t that big. Amy Hoy was standing there, and she was like “oooooooooh… have I got the wrong room?” and I laughed and said no, and she was like “well okay, do you guys want to come for lunch? Meet in the foyer at 12.30″. I was like sweet, and passed the message on, but then went back to sleep. It was a mighty comfy bed. I only woke up sometime after 4pm when Kat rang me to make sure I was okay. She wouldn’t have been so worried about me if she hadn’t bumped into Hadyn and Amy, who reminded her of my tendency to jump into the harbour at night. But anyways, I tried and failed to throw up discreetly, and went home to my Kat and my cat, both of whom were pleased to see me.

In conclusion: I LOVE WEBSTOCK! Greatest collection of people ever, superbly put together, so inspiring and invigorating, and just wow. I wish it was 2010 already…

Oh boy, have I ever been busy! Where to start? Perhaps with photos. On the 14th of July, Bart had a party at his house, which was Rubik’s Cube themed. We were instructed to dress in all the colours of the cube and try to swap with others to end up in just one colour. Thinking that it wasn’t likely that I’d find anyone to swap clothes with, I hit the $2 shops in search of multi-coloured accessories, and wore them with all black clothes. It proved to be a great idea, as this photo that Lani took will prove:
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As befits the party host, Bart went all out with his costume:

Gradually people built up their costumes:

Bart, Dylan and dirty Shirley

I was trading my mardi gras beads for looks at boy titty (and also for those hot pants that Dyl’s wearing in that photo). At the start of the night we hid out in the kitchen because people were watching rugby in the lounge, so I hijacked the stereo and tried to play the cheesiest music on Bart’s ipod. At one stage I ended up wearing a flower garland, but it was covering up my cleavage so when I saw a boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt I asked him if he wanted to get leied. He was confused then, but of course, after many more drinks I found myself downstairs in the hallway making out with him. As there were many people up on the landing above us, I tried to move us into the gap between the stairs and the wall, thinking it was more out of view, but instead I found myself lying on my back, looking up at people looking down on me while he tried to take off my shirt. As texts from Lani later in the week (she went to Auckland first thing in the morning) said after I accused her of being a pervert & always watching me when I was trying to celebrate hooking up someone without her walking in on us – “LOL i wasnt the only one wtching!” (who else was watching?) “I dnt knw sme rndoms. I jst cme 2 c wat they wre lking at lol” AWESOME. Anyways, the boy and I went into one of the bedrooms down there, and made out a bit more – strictly second base only and then Bart walked in and looked really shocked and I felt terrible because honestly, so tacky to misappropriate someone else’s bedroom for your pashage. Of course, later when I apologised to Bart via email he said he knew what was going on and just thought it would be funny to walk in. Anyways, we finished kissing (<!– And when I say “we finished kissing” what I really mean is that we were frotting on the bed, or dry-humping if that’s a word you’re more comfortable using, and it was very much hands above the waist kissing, and then he started thrusting more and more, and groaning, and I had my hands in his hair and was like “ummmmm” and he thrust away a bit more and then made orgasm noises, and I was like “really? REALLY?” and then he got up and left and I laughed and laughed and laughed. –>) and I went back to the party and hit on Lani’s cousin, apparently. Much later, I really really needed to pee, but people were in the bathroom talking, and I was like “what the hell?” and since the door didn’t lock, I barged in. The guy I’d pashed was sitting in the bath talking to some other guy who was sitting on the floor, and I was like “I NEED TO PEE!” but they showed no signs of moving, so I went ahead and urinated anyway. That’s right, I’m Robin Tunney in Empire Records. I’m hardcore, yo! The party was a tremendous amount of fun. At the end of the night around 4.30am I was left with Dyl and Smoo and Bart who were playing yelly metal in the lounge. Bart disappeared to go buy cheeseburgers (I can has?) and Smoo tried to hit me when I tried to wake him up to take a taxi home, and Dyl had much the same reaction when I tried to get him up off the lounge floor so I left them and went home to giggle about how that makes three pashes in six weeks and at this rate, I’m going to kiss 26 people before I turn 28. Hurrah!

I am allowed to play silly buggers on the weekend because I had a very grown up week to follow that. I met with four recruitment agents! That’s a lot of having to get out of my pyjamas and comb my hair! Apart from that, I also went to the VIP night at Beckon where Hadyn, Amy, Tom and I all won spot prizes, and I took this fantastic photo:

Karen came to meet up with me and she and Hadyn and Amy and I went for a very pleasant meal at Longxiang afterwards:

I liked the orange beef best

The next night I went to the Ponoko beta product launch night at the Paramount, with the lovely Sue and the very intelligent Alan. Sue gave me an awesome bunny necklace, and I gave her some scrub in return. Then a group of us went for dinner at Royal India and I bossed my way through ordering for everyone like I tend to do.

On Friday I saw people from the Wellingtonista yet again, on our big night out, first at Vintage, then Hawthorn and then of course Boulot. And all I can say is that it’s just as well that Martha is my BFF, or she’d be in for a serious talking-to.

MG plied us with wine

Kim and Tom held court

Martha is queen of the dramatic

My mouth is the size of my head. Photo plundered from Stephen

And then on Saturday I called Karen many names because she wouldn’t surrender my copy of Harry so I changed my sheets for nothing. I got him on Sunday but had to go to Ngaio to do washing and to print out a presentation on how the government could use YouTube. I had two job interviews on Monday that I heard back from straight away, and started a six-week contract yesterday, and received a verbal offer from the other this afternoon. Fingers crossed that my references check out and the paperwork comes through!