New Zealand—Aotearoa

Late afternoon in Wellington

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:19:51 -0800

A sunny day in Wellington, even if it took over half a day to get a compose screen on Vox. I’m already blogging more on Blogger, so I suspect these posts will become fewer (and not out of choice). This was around 5 p.m. today:

Victoria Street outside the CPO, summer 2009

Happy Hanukkah!

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Chatting about the Addington races

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:44:00 -0800

I’m getting paranoid importing from YouTube because of the tags they introduce, and tags might be one of the reasons it takes me hours to get a compose screen on Vox. However, this one came up on demand, which is a relief.
I showed this to my neighbourhood yesterday, but as the YouTube one is public, I have no problems sharing it more widely. It was my TV appearance last month on CTV, with Angela and Megan on Good Living. This was not networked, but it was very fun to do. The set reminded me a bit of the Good Morning one at Avalon, except I got one thing that I was promised but never got: a subtitle with both my and Lucire’s names.

Megan & Angela are joined by Jack Yan, Judge of Cup Day 09, 11/11/09

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Random photos, because you never know when Vox will let me blog again

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:07:35 -0800

A minute to load this second compose window after a 12-hour block. Oh well, have some photos.

From left to right: an old Hillman Minx in town, another red-light runner, and a giant strawberry.

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Random photos from yesterday

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:19:17 -0800

Not sure how many hours the compose screen took today, but here it is.

   This post will be non-sensical only because I didn’t want to waste a compose screen, since they are rarities. On left is the football match last night. At the right, mutant strawberries (the DLE envelope is a size guide), also from last night.
   Katie Taylor (the current Miss New Zealand) deleted the pics I took of her—sorry, lads.
   Given what Patricia told me with her issues, I have no confidence the Vox boffins will ever fix their bug. She’s been at them since before September. While Daisy is a huge help and actually cares about Voxers, I wonder if anyone else at Six Apart gives a damn.

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Trading in at Real Groovy

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:43:39 -0800

James Bond Ultimate Collection - Vol. 3 - From Russia With Love/On Her Majesty's Secret Service/Live

At least I no longer have to wait hours, but I do have to wait minutes and several reloads to begin composing on Vox.
   I have never traded DVDs before, but after buying that fancy Casino Royale set from Real Groovy, I didn’t need my old two-CD one any more. I also bought a five-movie James Bond set (left) a while back, which meant I had doubled up on one of my favourite Bond films, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I took them in to Real Groovy.
   How it works: one goes to the trades’ counter at the store and hands them over. The store gives you an option of store credit or cash.
   The two DVD sets, which cost me around NZ$60 to buy to begin with, were worth NZ$12 used as store credit; NZ$6 if I wanted the money.
   As I buy from Real Groovy all the time, I opted for the former, to which they issue a credit note, redeemable on a future purchase.
   Sony has still done well out of me. While I only paid NZ$5 for the new Casino Royale boxed set—because of Real Groovy’s loyalty scheme—that’s still NZ$34 overall (NZ$35 purchase price for the first set, NZ$5 for the new one, minus NZ$6 for the trade). The five-movie set was NZ$39—let’s round it up to NZ$40 for easy calculation—which means each DVD was NZ$8. The original On Her Majesty’s Secret Service DVD was c. NZ$25, so that’s NZ$27 out of my pocket for the copy I have today.

James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 4 - Dr. No/You Only Live Twice/Moonraker/Octopussy/Tomorrow Never Dies [DVD]

★★★★

Since I have all the Bonds I want out of the 22 Eon ones made, I am in no hurry to plug the gaps, but it seems these boxed sets are the way to go. I buy them when I see them on special, but I am not sure if I will buy the remaining two (I also have vol. 4), so Moonraker is the next to head to Real Groovy—I forgot to take it today. If it also nets NZ$6, then an NZ$18 credit on the sixth season of Mission: Impossible (below) will make it worth buying here rather than via Amazon.com. I await its arrival—we are somewhat behind the US when it comes to these sets’ release.

Mission Impossible: The Sixth TV Season

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Where’s the I?

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:35:23 -0800

Time elapsed for compose window to appear: about ten seconds. Have they fixed it? (Last time I asked that, I jinxed it, and the next load took something like 16 hours.)
I was at Newtown Mall last week (not a regular shopping location for me) and noticed a pretty big typo. Where did the missing i in responsibility go?

Where’s the I

Oh, there it is, just down the steps:

Oh, there it is

Maybe they could take the extra I from here and glue it to the other one once they finish with the special. Though with the LT kerning in the top photograph, it’s going to be tricky fitting it in.

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Here are the set-ups where Vox does not work

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:16:32 -0800

Not sure how many days it’s been since the last time I was able to use Vox, but as mentioned on Tumblr, I have now tried yet another computer (unrelated to my company) and another ISP in Auckland. Vox does not work for me on the following:

As paranoid as it sounds, I’ve had to conclude that I, and not various New Zealand cities, am being locked out of Vox. A friend suggested I open a new account just to test whether I can compose on Vox. I dislike doing fake profiles for anything, so I am morally opposed to doing this. However, if I can prove I am being targeted, then that goes some way to helping Vox figure out what is wrong. Maybe someone has wormed their way into their system? After all, I’ve had my fair shares of battles with, say, Russian spammers—I even had a Joe job done on me—and I have never been shy exposing the sploggers who ruin the experience on Vox.
I was going to blog about something else entirely, but, as usual, the sheer novelty of seeing the compose screen on Vox got me on to the same old subject again.

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Spring photos: ASB’s unconvincing campaign and my ﬂowers

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:51:26 -0800

I lost count of how many hours it took for the compose screen to come up, but since it is night-time now, and I am pretty sure there was sunlight when I first began clicking ‘Create’, we can say a good quarter of the day has passed, at least.
   The good news is that Daisy at Vox—a.k.a. the only lady who seems to care—has written back to me to say my issue has been passed on to the boffins there. I hope they can sort it out, but I believe that since I have tested Vox on Macs and PCs, and in two different cities using two different ISPs, and all manner of browsers, then we can rule out anything I am doing wrong. I have, after all, been on the web since 1993 and kind of know what I am doing.
   The other good news is that I have something other than technogripes to post.
   First up, the Auckland Savings Bank, which is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is trying to push how “Kiwi” it is. Kiwibank, in New Zealand, must be a real threat to ASB, because people are conscious of how much Australian banks have been ripping off New Zealand customers. Hence the whole local angle, which is not really convincing anyone except for a few people in the boardroom at ASB. (In fact, a whole Facebook group has been set up to refute these advertisements.)
   Here is the outdoor ad that reminded me of the campaign:

ASB is not Kiwi and has not been for years

to which Helen Baxter, others and I say, ‘Cobblers!’
As it is nearly impossible to get a compose screen on Vox, here is a second image I wanted to share. The yellow roses that I posted earlier were the worse for wear after some gales here, but you can’t beat nature. Here’s one of the new arrivals, photographed earlier today:

The brightest yellow rose today

Like Chance the Gardener, I have other flowers. In the spring. In the garden.

Other flowers

As you can see, the spring weather has finally come, albeit very late in the piece.

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Spotted: ’69 Mustang

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:01:23 -0800

Wow. Six minutes to load the compose screen. That’s definitely this week’s record.
This is the other photo I wanted to show:

1969 Ford Mustang Fastback 351

A beautiful 1969 Ford Mustang Fastback with a 351 in³ V8 under the hood. I asked the owner for permission to photograph his car which, sadly, had lost all oil pressure. I drove him to the petrol station in case the car was ‘out of gas’; when I came back along this route a while later, his car had gone, so I hope he was able to get it started.
He says he has a friend with a Cobra Jet 428, which we both thought was the best of this series, and that this shape was probably the nicest before Bunkie Knudsen’s fat Mustangs hit the streets for the 1971 model year. Sometimes I like the ’68s, and the ’65s, but right now, the ’69s seem to appeal to my taste in 2009.

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Gripe about Vox, Ben Kingsley, and Wellington scenery

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:43:23 -0800

“Only” took 20 minutes for this screen to come up this time. In a day and age when we should wait no more than 20 seconds. Still, I’m sure Vox believes I should be happy because 20 minutes is less than 16 hours. ‘Yay!’ they must think, ‘our load times have come down from hours to minutes!’
   I know, no one likes the pissy tone I take when I begin these posts, but it’s so darned frustrating when technology does not work as advertised. And no one seems to think there’s anything wrong: I’ve heard from neither my ISP nor Vox on this bug.
   That’s not totally true. I haven’t heard anything recently. TelstraClear says there is nothing wrong and it can reach vox.com. Duh. I know that. So can I. I just can’t do anything while I’m there except make comments (hence I am using one post’s comment space to blog at—this is how ridiculous it has become—and to keep track of how often Vox’s massive bug is keeping me from doing what it says on the tin). I can’t compose, add photos, add videos, etc. Except once every long while when it opts to let me have a screen to write in.
   And Daisy, who seems to be the only person working at Six Apart who cares, has written to me as well. But I’ve heard nothing for a few days.
   Remember how long the Amazon conduit took to get fixed here? Considering this “can’t do stuff on Vox” bug has been around since August, and has gotten worse by the week, I’d rather sacrifice the Amazon conduit in favour of, well, being able to blog.
   Readers, I’m sorry you’ll have to put up with hugely long posts because I have no guarantee on when Vox will let me compose again.

Ben Kingsley
Here’s one thing I wanted to blog during one of the many, many blackouts on Vox.

Don Logan rants for Live Aid 1st vid

I always thought Sir Ben Kingsley’s role in Sexy Beast was a cult favourite, but that the general public did not know of it. However, here he reprises his role for a charity advertisement. Linked to this was a brilliant one of Sir Ben impersonating Sir Anthony Hopkins:

Ben Kingsley does Anthony Hopkins

More scenery shots
These would have warranted individual posts, but that’s not going to happen.
Remember when masonry was a real art, done by people and not a computer? This was beautiful work at one of our government buildings, where I was meeting a friend.

Lovely masonry

Here’s one for the car nuts:

Czech mate

Get it? A Škoda Octavia with a number plate about its origins, and a pun in the plate! This motorist has thought it through.
At last night’s launch of the Chinese New Year Festival, painter Stan Chan created a work live while Natalie Foy (niece of comedian Raybon Kan) sang a traditional song. As I remarked to the Mayor, the last time I saw something like that was Rolf Harris on the UK version of The Generation Game in the 1970s. A bit far away on the photo here:

Stan paints live

Then, we wondered, what was an ambulance doing outside some restaurants on Blair Street? Was the curry that explosive at one of these joints? (Monsoon Poon is owned by a friend of mine and does some wonderful cuisine, incidentally.) Or, did one of the Mac operators at the recruitment agency collapse of exhaustion?

Bad food experience

There were more tourists last night in Wellington than normal, which is lovely to see. Here are some examining the bucket fountain (part of most Wellingtonians’ childhoods; it was infamously desecrated when Elijah Wood urinated in it when he was here filming The Lord of the Rings). Darned Hollywood types.

Tour group and bucket fountain

Now, I can’t see the name of the establishment in this due to the lights, but I believe it was for either an adult shop or sex toys. It does make you wonder why they spend so much money advertising this stuff, but the headline was still funny:

Adult shop billboard

There is one more, but I’m going to gamble to see if Vox will let me in again. Any bets on whether it will be minutes, hours or days?

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