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Tonight I was invited to a Wenatex seminar, as the people who were originally invited have the flu. So I accepted the offer, as it came with free dinner. Eight people attended; I was the only one under 30; everyone else was at least in their early 50s, through to perhaps late 60s. The speaker was a Polish woman, and the male assistant was Slovenian. Overall the seminar was very informative, and I /really/ wanted one of their beds after trying it out -- but virtually none of us there had any hope of affording a bed. A single mattress is $1600, after discounts, I think. The seminar offer took 25% off the regular price, and the demo bed had an additional 20% off it. Still, it's too rich for my blood. -.- Dinner was basically crumbed chicken patties stuffed with ham and cheese (both of which I managed to scrape out so I could eat the chicken), served with cooked potatoes, cauliflower, peas, pumpkin and kumara. I ate most of the chicken and vegetables, leaving about half the (undercooked) pumpkin and the cauliflower. It was still fairly good, though. We got free gifts, which we had to share between ourselves -- a herbal balm or a dream interpretation book. I took the book.
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I went over to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) colinraccoon and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nipper's place yesterday (Sunday) afternoon to pick up our (my, and Ant and Fiona's) FurCoNZ 2008 DVDs, and ended up staying until nearly 12:30 AM playing the Arkham Horror board game with them, and whitelock and stepwolf, who were visiting. It's a complex game, but it was a lot of fun. We got through two games, the first one against Cthulhu, and the second against Glaaki. We lost both games by a landslide. The high points for me were 1) rolling four dice and getting four sixes -- I was in the Rivertown streets, which had an effect on it which meant a player could roll a die for each stamina point they had, losing one stamina for each die that wasn't a success (5 or 6). I can't remember what the reward for it was. I think it was two clue tokens. And 2) racking up 17 clue tokens, getting four during one round, and getting an encounter card which let me get two clue tokens for each toughness point on the monsters I had. I had four monsters with a total of 6 points, so got 12 clue tokens. In the end of the second game, various effects took away our spells and weapons, and we were pretty much left with nothing when Glaaki woke up early. I definitely want to play it again. Current Mood:  tired
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...Norway, la Norvege, with an astounding 387 points (a new record), with Iceland taking a very distant second place with 218 and Azerbaijan just behind with 207. Iceland was last in 2nd place in 1999, and the Azeri entry placed very highly for a country's second attempt. Norway took the lead from the first vote, and held it all the way through. With the new voting system (50% televote, 50% jury vote) the bloc voting was still present, but it was much less pronounced (though predictably there were a few neighbour votes, such as Romania and Moldova trading 12 points with each other). The show was spectacular, with the stage design taking some 2000 large projection screens, which is apparently most of Europe's supply. In a new twist the order to start voting was given by a Japanese astronaut on the International Space Station, complete with grainy video feed. The UK entry, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, placed very well, coming 5th, behind Turkey. France was not far behind either. The Spanish and German entries were in the middle of the bottom half of the table, and Finland once again lucked out in last place. After fourteen years, NRK will get to organise the next contest. See you in Oslo in 2010! Current Mood:  ecstatic
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I have a Swedish friend staying with me for a few days. Today we went over to Waikino, in the scenic Karangahake Gorge, to wander around the ruins of the Victoria Battery. The weather was terrible as we left Hamilton, but as we got further out the weather cleared up. We had a cup of coffee at the Waikino Station Café, then walked over to the ruins via the walkway. I got a few good photos of various parts before we decided to head back as rain seemed very imminent. After that we headed into Waihi to have a look at the Martha's Hill Mine (though it's no longer a hill but a very large pit). We found the information centre, and we spent some time wandering through its downstairs area (which had a lot of information pertaining to the mine and how gold is extracted), then we headed over the road to the imposing remains of the pumphouse, which had, until 1913, removed water from the mine. I took a few photos of that, and one of the mine before the camera's batteries finally gave up the last dregs of their power, then we headed back home again, spending a few minutes trying to figure out how to access the bits of the Battery ruins that we hadn't seen on the way. I think I'll create a Flickr account for such phototaking opportunities; I did get some fairly good scenic ones. Tomorrow morning I will be waking up around 6:45 AM to prepare myself for watching the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Hopefully the stream won't cut out so much, unlike last year. Current Mood: tired
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Ant and I went to see ' Queen - It's a Kinda Magic' last night at the Founders Theatre. Our seats were at the very left of row B (A being the closest to the stage). It wasn't long before I realised that I'd erred seriously in my choice of seats, as they were about three metres from a massive speaker stack. The amount of bass that came from it was immense; I really can't describe how my chest cavity felt being subjected to such a battering. For the first hour or so, until the intermission, I had my fingers in my ears (I wasn't the only one). When the intermission arrived, we made our way up to the back of the theatre, to row X. The bass was still strong, but definitely not as bad as it had been. The music was still very loud, though. Overall, the concert was good, but next time I take it into my head to go to such a concert, I'll either rethink it, or take earplugs and book seats at the back. At least sitting near the back gives a good view of the stage. Current Mood: tired
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Tonight I went to see Kevin Bloody Wilson at the Founders Theatre, here in Hamilton. It was an excellent show -- I'm guessing the theatre was packed; I was in the second row, and never thought to look behind me. Jenny Talia (his daughter) opened the show, doing her act for the first half-hour or so, then there was an intermission, during which time I bumped into an old classmate -- in fact, the last time I saw her was at Kevin's previous Hamilton show a couple years ago -- and me and some other guy raced for the nearest ATM to get some cash out to purchase merchandise. I bought Jenny's 'Tunnel Vision' album, and got her to sign the inside cover. Then the show started again, and we were treated to nearly two hours of Kev singing and telling stories and jokes (including the inevitable Aussie/Kiwi ones). After the concert, which finished about fifteen minutes late, me and my former peer (and her husband) waited in line to have Kevin sign our merchandise. Just before I stepped up, I noticed that, on the back of the official tour shirt of the guy in front of me, the next stop on the list -- Palmerston North -- was spelled as 'Plamerston North'. The error had been noticed only yesterday, so for once I wasn't the first to point it out. :p He signed the front of the CD booklet, we had a few friendly words, then I left to go home. All-in-all an extremely enjoyable evening, even if I was hot and somewhat uncomfortable. I laughed so hard during 'I'll never shit solid again' (aka 'Bali Belly Song') that my face hurt, so that's a good measure of the fun I had. Next up, Queen on Friday night. Current Mood: tired
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