woe is me

Well this is where I spent my weekend folks. Please note copious amounts of drinking vessels, wooly blankets and the roll of toilet paper. Yep, after getting back from Portugal, Fate saw fit to knock me out for all of Saturday and most of Sunday- I didn't budge, just curled up and felt sorry for myself. I did get a whole lot of DVD & TV watching done though so at least there was a silver lining. My Sunday afternoon was an eclectic mix of The OC, Stargate, Enterprise, Calamity Jane (gotta love a musical) and Maverick. Who'd've thought you could get an almost 7 hour run of ok TV? Since I felt better for most of yesterday I thought I'd put things to the test and go to the gym this morning and I'm still standing so I guess I'm better.
More on Portufal later, plus pics, right now I need to get some work done.

first issue arrrrrghh

So right now i'm in the middle of putting together the first issue for Critic 06. It is (ofcourse) a nightmare, and I wish now I had saved more money last year and decided to travel all this year. How nice it would be to be somewhere like Portugal... Or maybe working on a cruiseship making shandys for retired people.

In the course of obligatory procrastination, I insisted that the office be completley shifted around-- I'm really into my open plan, indoor-outdoor flow and all. I also got crazy with the gaff tape for all those fricken cords.
Here's a photos of the result. It still looks like the office has heaps of crap in it, but really we threw out heaps.

Perhaps even the OSX 10.3 cd which has gone missing. Fantastic.

NB: Kate working under her desk at the right....

ba humbug

As much of a horrible commercial farce as Valentine's Day may have become, yada yada yada, so has the act of complaining about it become a total and utter cliché. Valentine's spam, emails from my picture libraries of special Valentine's Day image collection (vomit and delete), everyone having plans with that "special person" in their life- except me. Bitter old woman much?

So to make ourselves feel better, me, Mands, Sue and Kez all went out for dinner. (Four singleton females all out for dinner together on Valentine's Day to make each other feel better- also a horrible cliché I know.) The Gourmet Burger Kitchen is so the schizzle. I decided not to take piccies of our burgers (should have) and instead opted for end of evening happy pics after we'd all had a cocktail. I had the yummiest strawberry daiquiri I've had in a good long while although Kerry thought hers was a bit strong (pansy).

And only two more days till Portugal!!!!!!!! Whoopee!!!!!!! Probably no blogging for most of that week as I'll be touristing around or pulling my hair out as I look after supposedly adorable children. Goodluck.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Since about 4pm I've been all but falling asleep at my desk. I don't know what has come over me but I just want to cut and run at 5pm (or curl up under my desk) but since I'm going on holiday on Friday, I have a lot to pack in to this week. I have tried everything from taking a 5 min power-kip in the loo to taking my work outside into the cold (worked well for 2 mins and then I just started falling asleep again). Right now my eyes have that feeling they would usually get at 2am if I'd been working all day and was still staring at a screen or if you're trying to drive from Welly to Akl in one stint immediately after a 3am ferry.

On other news, I got my baby back from the pub on Fri night. I was so not expecting that. And this morning it got christened at the gym. Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that I do not look quite as hella-tight with it on as I had envisioned. But this is not the fault of my iPod and matching strap, I blame my arm. I mean check it out- it's matching and teal. How can you lose?

Rippon! W00t!

The Rippon contingent this year consisted of Signor John Ong, the lovely Mademoiselle Hannah August, Monsieur E. Le Roy Higbee and moi. We travelled in the Merc up the Pig Route imagining what the Rippon acts that we were missing were like, and playing Rippon-related music loud on the car stereo.

By the time we got there, it was early afternoon and we had missed Kora, PBass Expressway, and a couple others. So to show our remorse we did what everyone else was doing and lay in the sun getting boozed on cheap Rippon wine. Ah! Glorious!

And that was basically how the rest of our day went, in the sun. With booze. Lazily eating cheese and salami. Watching this complete LOCO guy devour a whole chicken carcass with his hands and teeth. Until shapeshifter came on about 6, and they shook our little booties off with a *fantastic* set. Then it was Shihad, and let's face it, I'm not a fan. And he swore 34 times. But they had a good lighting technician. After that "rock out", smooth and beautiful Fat Freddy's Drop came on stage and played for a restrained 1hr45mins, nice and mellow and so not suitablly placed in the schedual - between two rock acts (The Mint Chicks played last).

Then it was time to leave and head to the afterparty. Which was a great idea in theory, apart from we had no sober drivers, and a car full of stuff, and no patience to wait for buses. So we decided we'd have a couple minutes of shut-eye in the carpark.
Yeah.
At 6.30 am, when we finally woke up, cold and in pain from sleeping in a car, I realised that yet again I had missed the Upbeats, and about 2/3 of the afterparty gig. We still, a little belatedly, made it to see the Irie Eyes in beautiful morning lit Cadrona Valley, but after a couple of hours of bopping around in the morning chill with all the hardcore BZPers, we decided we needed pies and juice.

And boy is there nothing quite like a Dough Bin chicken curry pie down by Wanaka lake after a hard night.

After we fulfilled our pie fantasies we decdied to head back to Dunedin, stopping on the way at the Wanaka shooting range to try our luck at some hole-in-ones, and to see how much clay pigeon shooting cost. (A lot apparently).
Next stop was Bannockburn, a small place outside of Cromwell, that embodies everything that is good about Central Otago.
Hannah's family has an awesome crib there with a wrap-around porch, a cute nephew and several KiwiTubs (her dad is the genius behind these). We had a nice long soak in the sun looking at beautiful central hills and trees, and wishing we could all just move there.
We then tried the fare down in Cromwell village, choosing an Italian place that we pinned high hopes on... Cromwell Italian is as good as it sounds FYI (LOL).

Back on the road Hannah and I exhaustedly slumped over each other in the back seat, while John and Elliot discussed the place of nuclear power in New Zealand. All the way back to Dunedin.

Pie Tally: 5(ish)
Sunburn: 25% (John has a 'beater' mark)
Escargot: None, but they were selling for $2 each/

beer is bad

I can't believe it- there must be some kind of curse on me- or on my work mates. It seems that everytime I go out to a pub with them for some big occasion, I leave a bag behind. What with going to the gym before work, I invariably have both a backpack and a handbag with me and it seems I am doomed to leave one of them behind at the end of the night. Last night it was my backpack (again) and I was ultra-traumatised because in it is my iPod mini with my new pride and joy- its matching armband. When I get it back I'm putting up a photo... My iPod is blue (who are they kidding? It's TEAL guys.) and I ordered an armband from Apple so that it's easier for around the gym. (Any excuse to accessorise will do.) At any rate, it's teal too and my God am I going to be a vision of style at teh gym on Monday morning. That is, so long as some tosser hasn't taken it from my bag. I really have no faith in the integrity of people over here. I did call up the pub when I got home and they have it so tonight I have to trek back in to central London again to go pick it up. But it will be worth it to have my baby with me once again. It is so beautiful.

The occasion last night was the farewell of Christian, our now former Features Editor. Chris is relatively quiet and kinda shy and would absolutely KILL me if he knew I blogged this image of him which I grabbed from a feature folder. And as a disclaimer, this photo does him no justice. But of course I forgot to bring my camera last night which is probably just as well because I probably would have left that somewhere too. I shall miss his emails, his dry sense of humour, his trendy Indie dress styles and ever-changing facial hair. And he smelt good. Farewell Chris, you shall be missed. How will you cope with having to make your own coffee?

falling in love again

It seems like it was only yesterday that it was dark by 4:30pm. But here I am at 4:35 and there is still light. And BLUE SKY.
Dude.
When I walked out of the house this morning it was light already and I'm sure that last week I was groping my way to the bus stop in complete darkness. It is hard to put in to words the simple joy of a blue sky and some sunlight but it is a beautiful thing. I've been in a better mood today than I have been for weeks. Suddenly London doesn't seem like such a horrible place. You can forgive the pressing crowds and people who push past you adn bump and jostle without apologising. None of this is quite so important when there is sun. No wonder people worshipped Sun Gods.
But to put things properly inperspective, the other view from the back of our offices, available if I turned 90degrees and in to the sun, was this ->. This is somewhat closer to what I've had for the past 3 weeks or more, just without the piercing sunlight to liven things up...

shiver me timbers

Well I had a relatively chilled weekend which was a good chance to regain what I like to think if as my natural composure. On Saturday I finally got to the London Aquarium which was cool but yet somehow not as cool as I'd hoped. I went there accompanied by Rob who is a friend of my sister that I am stealing and has become my sight-seeing buddy. They have a range of fish from different environments- Atlantic, Pacific, fresh water, rainforest, etc- but having to wade through hoards of small children and negotiate a sea of prams took the thrill out of it a bit. I was also somewhere between amused and concerned to see a bunch of fish in one display grouped in a corner. There wasn't any food there or bright lights of anything I could see that might be of fishy interest but there they were, acting like if they swam hard enough, they could get out of the corner.... I was hanging out to see Nemo and was pretty gutted until I came across a tank with a whole bunch of BABY clownfish. All these little guys swimming around and all about 3cm long. Pretty goddamn cute, let me tell you. When we finally emerged, we treated ourselves to sorbet (on a freezing cold day) and I made the mistake of giving Rob the camera while he tried to act like a pirate. Same old same old really.

kitty rocks my world

So I got home yesterday is a pretty foul mood as it hadn't been the best of days- it hasn't even been the best of weeks- and was all glum and grumpy... until I checked the mail. Waiting for me was a card from Kitty and NEW ZEALAND MAGNETIC POETRY. Sooooooooo supercool and hours of fun to be had by all. Especially as I explained what different words meant to my flatmates. Oh the hilarity. I was however gutted with the absence of gutted, ka pai, whanau and chur.

Another funny thing last night was that one of my flatmates made a sponge cake and, for the first time in her life, used an electric beater. I bought a cheapy one a while ago so I offered it to her (if God had intended us to cream butter and sugar by hand, he wouldn't have made electricity) and the reaction was hilarious. At first she was holding it like it was some kind of beast that would turn around and bite her and she was also holding it at an angle that promised to have our kitchen decorated in goop but after some pointers she was off. I had to smile when I went in to the living room and could hear her saying to our other flattie, "This thing is GREAT!" Damn straight.

As for the technical editor/art director thing, it's hard to say. At least in relation to how things are over here, I think art director is more like what we are doing and when you say technical editor, people do have more IT connotations. But then we did have to do a lot of system maintenance and helping people out with their computer problems and art director seems a bit over-the-top when it's only one person and you're not heading an art department with a host of arty minions. If I had a choice though, I'd say art director. ;-)

Famous!

I wanted to put a picture too, but I didn't know what of, so I just found something cute. (googleimage search: baby (whatelese?!))

I was in the Dunedin Public Library yesterday, and I was in the magazine section (NB: NOT looking at bridal magazines), when I happened to pass a copy of 'Geographica'. So I picked it up and casually flipped to the credits section, and lo and behold! Picture Researcher: Aynia Noever.
Wow! that is just so supercool! All shiny and glossy and 'Not for Issue' and everything!


In relation to the recent furor about that Critic offensive issue*, I shall share something from the classifications ruling document (well actually I might summise, as I need permission to duplicate anything in the report. awsome!).
Legally the ruling has to give a description of the publication it is writing about, so Critic's went something like: "yaddah yaddah yaddah... student audience... yaddah yaddah ...5500 print run... yaddah ...printed on good quality paper, with a compact, professional layout..."
Nevermind about that old 'Objectionable' classification and $2000 fine if you're caught with a copy; it's "professionally layed out" people!
Makes you think about if it was on crap paper and bad layout - "printed on crappy paper with a loose crap layout"
So, you know, every cloud and all that.
* If you want a great read, click here (PDF in side bar)to read the Society for Protection of Community Standards submission about the Offensive issue to the classification office. Or here to read a news report about the whole thing, with a GREAT ending.

I also have an idea to pitch. I was wondering what comicallysans and all its numerous readers and contributors think about changing the actual term 'Technical Editor' to something a bit more 'profession specific'...say, 'Art Director', or something as equally wanky like that, but that has more currency in conversations with the un-critic-intiated, and future employers.
Not that it matters, and it's probably just my Victorian Freudian tendencies wanting to label everything...
Anyway, comments or suggestions would be well receieved.

please hurry up Friday

I haven't wanted the weekend to come this quickly for a good long while. It's been a shitter of a week for a myriad of reasons which I won't state here but let's just say I'll b eglad to see it gone.

On a brighter note, Sean, the precocious 3 year old I will be looking after in Portugal is apparently already asking his mum when they're picking me up from the airport. So supercutie. And on Sunday I'm looking after a lively 4 yr old, giving her parents a well deserved chance to go out for a meal. I can look forward to a day of throwing around a ball, drawing, reading, going to the park and pushing a swing, and trying to avoid watching horrible children's videos. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll choose Aladdin or Finding Nemo... Which reminds me that I'm also aiming to get to the London Aquarium on Saturday which I anticipate being supercool.

babies it is

Well of course I had to choose babies in the end. I mean really, how could I not? I'm sure the novelty of being able to read my book all day and look at a pool that probably isn't warm enough to swim in yet would wear off after half a day. So instead I've signed up to be spat upon and wipe bottoms.

On a cooler note, I am going to be going to see Cirque Du Solei- hopefully next week! These guys are absolutely amazing and I'm quite excited. Yay for London!

Always choose the babies

Ka pai on the ol' posting aynia, but why are you asking about "to baby or not to baby?" You know you should ALWAYS choose the babies!

Speaking of babies, a certain Planet Pete had his first baby on Saturday morning. A girl called Mela. Awww cuuute! I'll post pictures when some materialise. I'm thinking or screen printing 'critic' onto a purple stretch and grow!


I'm living out an Ori mag nightmare at present, so can't blog as extensivley as I'd like to as I'm also being inundated with media calls regarding this:
Obejectionable!
And what with this week being editor-less (but technically still technical editorful), I have to spend a lot of time "putting you through to our general manager".

Awwwsome!

beaches or babies?

In just over two weeks I'm going to be headed to Faro, Portugal to stay with a friend of mine. I'm hanging out for some of this

and also seeing two of the most adorable kids in the world. The problem is, their mother is in a pantomime in the weekend so the kids were going to be left with a friend. I have however, been offered the dubious honour of looking after them if I choose.
"If you would actually prefer to be terrorized, victimized, have food thrown at you and spat upon you, listen to endless hours of nonsensnical babble about why good boys don't wipe snot on their jumper but ask for a tissue instead, only to see before your very eyes snot being wiped on the afore mentioned jumper, brush each tooth in an evergrowing mouth 25 times to be told you haven't brushed it hard/gently/long enough, read 4 or 5 bed time stories in 3 languages, before being bribed into reading another half dozen, and then when you finally settle down, take your coat off and open the fridge for a bite to eat, you'll be infomed, and not quietly, that the cup is on the wrong side of the bed..."
I honestly don't know what to do. Sean is three, a horrible flirt and at times reminds me very strongly of Calvin. His sister Daisy is just over one and starting to walk. Daisy is, most of the time, a real treat but supercutie can, in the blink of an eye, turn to not-so-supercutie. So I am in a dielma. The point of a holiday is to get some rest and rejuivinate so do I go for beaches for babies?