threemonkeys | Recent Entries

The Ōhariu electorate where I live is an interesting one. For example at the time of the 2011 election, it was electorate with the highest proportion of cellphone users and the highest proportion of internet users (source NZ parliament web site).

It is also perhaps the most represented electorates. Four of the people who stood in Ōhariu are in parliament (for those of you who don't do MMP - the electorate winner plus three party list MPs).

On top of that it is one of the very few electorates where the electorate vote (rather than the party vote) has a significant possibility of changing the proportionality of parliament and therefore potentially affecting which party is in power. No wonder that 81.6% of eligible voters actually cast a vote in the last election. That is a very high percentage (not the highest, but it is higher even than Epsom where the electorate vote was even more critical).

Interesting to see than that Charles Chauvel has resigned. My first thought was "good riddance" - the word "arrogant" tends to crop up very quickly in any discussions about him.

But then I started wondering what effect that will have on Ohariu voting patterns. On one hand he was very high profile. On the other hand, there were people who (like me) wouldn't give him my electorate vote because of what he is like.

Apologies for the politics - carry on, nothing to see here.

Turns out there is a DUFF race from Down Under (thats us folks) to LoneStarCon this year. Don't have a link to the full details, but if you are an Aussie or Kiwi fan and interested, get in touch with Dave Cake.

So, since I'm going to be at Conflux, why not come along as well. Nominations for FFANZ are now open.

Nominations are now open for the 2013 Fan Fund of Australia and New Zealand (FFANZ). FFANZ in 2013 will send one New Zealand science fiction fan from New Zealand to the 2013 Australian Natcon, Conflux 9 in Canberra from 25-28 April.

Prospective candidates will have until February 10th 2013 to file the documents required to have one's name placed in nomination and added to the ballot.

The ballots will be published and distributed in late February, and voting
will run from February 28th - March 12.

Candidates should file the following documents:

A brief letter stating one's intent to run for FFANZ 2013.
A nominator and a seconder, preferably a nominator from New Zealand and a seconder from Australia.
A 100 word or less platform statement specifying the candidate's reasons for running and qualifications for becoming the 2013 FFANZ delegate.

The duties of the winning candidate will be as follows:Travel to Australia and attend Conflux 9, the 52nd Australian Natcon, in Canberra from 25-28 April.

Visit and get to know as many Australian Science Fiction fans as time will permit.
Become the New Zealand FFANZ administrator until a replacement administrator is found, normally this happens when the administrator role is handed over to the succeeding Aussie-bound delegate (in 2015 if a race is run every year).
Raise funds and maintain an account to be used by the next NZ delegate(s) in 2015.
Promote connections between Australian and New Zealand fandom by a trip report or other means.

Send required documents to;
janlb@orcon.net.nz for New Zealand fans
celestialcobbler@hotmail.com for Australian fans

More information about being a fan fund delegate can be found at
http://ffanz.sf.org.nz/qanda.htm or http://ozfanfunds.com/

Thank you for the positive replies regarding Conflux. Your collective input was enough to shake me out of my inertia and get me moving. I have now registered, booked flights, hotel and leave. Look forward to seeing you there.

And as an aside, worth noting the benefits of all the cross posting - no one platform gave more than a couple of replies but overall enough to do the trick.

I need some reinforcement. Tell me Conflux 9 - Natcon is going to be worth it.

See, it is pretty much crunch time - I need to start booking leave, flights etc now in order to guarantee that I can have the time off and to get the cheapest flights. It is only 3 months to go.

On the other hand, 3 months seems a long time at the moment and it is a bit of a struggle to commit that much time and money this far out when I'm just getting over xmas. (and haven't got much leave, and the only flights I can realistically afford go through the hellmouth* blah blah blah).

So any words of encouragement would be appreciated. Of course if you actively don't want me there, then here is your chance as well.

* Hellmouth = Sydney airport. Especially when it is Qantas or Jetstar rather than Air NZ's superior planes.

I had a dentist appointment to fix yet another crumbling tooth. Before the appointment, they sent me a reminder text message and an email. Then they also left a message on my landline voice mail.

Do you think that they (and dentists in general) have a bit of an issue with people not keeping their appointments?

Don't answer that - it was rhetorical. I asked the assistant about people the phrase "I don't handle pain well". She conceded that yes, she hears that or its equivalent from the vast majority of people at some point or another.

Like many, xmas is when we get together as a family. Every so often you find out stuff. This year there was stuff about my mother's father's family which came to light. A long neglected envelope of photos and notes. I'm not really into the genealogy stuff, but I thought I'd share this. You never know, there may be some long lost relatives out there.

Lamp

This photo is of my great grandparents.

He was William Cantwell - born in New York NY in 1852. Moved to Australia aged 9 with his mother - settled at Doctor's Creek near Ballarat.
She was Winifred Cantwell (nee Stevenson) - born in Melbourne Vic in 1859 - moved to Ballan Vic soon after.

They were married in Gordon Vic in 1877. They had 15 children - my grandfather was number 13.

My grandfather moved to the south island of NZ in 1913 aged 13 in the company of one of his older brothers - this was soon after the death of William the same year. Winifred died in 1952 aged 92.

I watched the full DVD length documentary When a City Falls by Gerard Smyth. Courtesy of Rustica who sent me a copy on the understanding that I write a review. But just how the heck do you write a review about about a film like this.

It isn't hard to describe what the film is about - it is a chronicle of the Christchurch earthquakes. It uses the documentary technique of letting the pictures and the voices of the people tell the story without additional narration. The editing and a handful of date captions tell the narrative - the camera captures the rest live. It is a technique I remember first seeing to hugely great effect used by Barbara Koppel's Oscar winning Harlan County USA. And I suppose you could dissect this film on those terms - the beauty and immediacy of the images and the clarity of the narrative, complete with minor quibbles about the sequencing post the second big quake.

But, the thing is, none of that matters. The only way I can really evaluate this film is at an emotional level. After watching the film, I had no way of expressing my visceral response to it. It was all over the place. There is so much going on beyond just the shock - horror aspect. Obvious things like respect for the inevitable strength shown by many to rebuild, but also odd things like nostalgia - I lived in Christchurch for nine years.

Anyway, I'm not going to try to properly describe let alone quantify the emotional effect. All I can note is that there is an impact for me. And in the nature of such things, that impact will be different for each person.

Despite all of the above, the question is - should you buy it? Well yes, if you have any sort of interest in what happened to Christchurch or in the human response to natural disaster, then this is something you should watch. Unless you were actually there, it takes you the step beyond whatever you may have seen or heard elsewhere.

Have you ever had a look at the Volvo logo? Do you think they may be restricting their marketing to only half the population?

Hmmm, my home phone (but not the associated internet service) was inoperative for the last 3 weeks and nobody seemed to notice. Or at least they didn't comment. Seems anybody who needed to contact me used my cellphone or email. Perhaps it is finally time I got rid of the home landline number.

Has anybody out there had problems when they ditched the landline? I know some institutions (i.e. banks) had problems issuing credit to people without a landline - it was a risk factor.

On the plus side, less hassle from scammers and cold calling salesfolk.

If you know me in person, then you probably know how much I love my car. Yet I am the first to admit that is not a practical thing to own - it is expensive to run and its capabilities don't really match my lifestyle.

So from time to time I think about getting something more practical. This usually happens after another expensive service. So this time I thought I might actually follow through and investigate my options. See if there is something out there that might satisfy - just initial investigation. So I worked out a budget and drew up a shortlist.

One car in particular stood out. Right at the top of the budget but nice. It was advertised on trademe and on the dealers site (and on a couple of other auto trade sites). The text repeated the price and emphasised what great value it is.

So this morning, I rock up to the sales yard and find the car. Exactly as advertised except that the price on the window was higher! Quite a bit higher - enough to take it out of budget. I ask a salesman and he goes check. He comes back and says that the price on the window is right. I spend a bit of time looking at the car because it would suit very nicely, but I'm wasting my time because I cannot afford it. So I leave and walk down the street to the next car.

Thing is, I don't necessarily believe that it is a mistake. I think they were trying to sucker people in with the lower price. The old bait and switch. The fact that the price is repeated on all those sites and that the descriptive text mentions the price again is what clinches it.

You can see why they may do it - the model of car is not a big seller. So, sucker people into coming in and having a look at the car based on the price. If they are impressed by it (and it is impressive) then the price difference may not matter.

Still it is scumbag behavior. The cliche lives.

Hmm windows 8. Spent time disabling all the extraneous crap (as usual with any OS). Then found a way to get the start button back. Found myself thinking "what was the point again..."

The number geek in me just loves this report on NZs population reaching 4,444,444. Even though it is pretty meaningless and only an estimate, it is still cool.

Lets see... written by Bryan Fuller, directed by Bryan Singer, starring Eddie Izzard and Portia de Rossi. Sounds too good to be true - its almost like a dream team. If you don't know who those people are and what great work they have been involved in, then head over to IMDB and find out. In particular Fuller who with Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies has managed to combine proper story with whimsical treatment of supernatural themes. But then his stuff does tend to get cancelled pretty quickly - thats what you get fro trying to be smart & clever and not stoop to lowest common denominator cringe based sitcoms.

So what have these people been doing. The have been remaking The Munsters. Yes really. It is called Mockingbird Lane. Its good. Find a copy and watch it. Quick, before it gets cancelled.

As part of the ongoing struggle against clutter, I'm doing a bit of technology reorganisation and decommissioning. During that I discovered that the remote for my old VCR machine doesn't work. The box still plays tapes but I have actually get up to stop & start tapes (shock*horror).

But then, I start thinking about when I last played a VHS tape - it may have been years ago. Even still possessing a VCR and having it plugged in makes me rather anachronistic. Most people I know don't have one any longer or if they do, it is sitting unused in a cupboard somewhere.

But then again, I know full well that for every obsolete technology there are fans out there. Either it fits their needs and so they see no reason to change, or they relish their "good old days" stance and are happy to bore those around them with it at every opportunity.

The reason I have kept my tape player is that I have a bunch of commercial tapes I want to keep the ability to play. I got rid of all the home recorded stuff years ago, but I have about 35 bought tapes left. Tapes that I never actually watch. So does anybody out there want them? Anybody who still adheres to the VHS way (and is local enough to come collect them) is welcome to them. If you know me, you can probably guess what the subject matter is like.

More space for books...

I seem incapable of writing about anything except customer service these days. So here goes...

Went to a local department store today to buy stuff in their Labour weekend sale. I bought something that I have needed for a while at 50% of RRP. All good so far. The salesperson was friendly and chatty and as I was paying for the items she says "would you like a free pen". Sure I say and she drops it in the bag. Its a nice looking pen and it was in no way part of the inducement to buy - just an added extra. Its what the marketing folk call "surprise & delight" or some such drivel.

So here I am, I have bought the items I want at a good price and the service was spot on. Then I go to use the pen - it is broken. The ballpoint bit won't extend out of its housing. No amount of twisting, pressing, levering or various other flexing will not let the point extend. And it is a nice pen - it looks much better than the usual promo junk. I'm beginning to think that the company know they are faulty and are just dumping them off on customers.

What does this mean for customer satisfaction. It means that from a very satisfied customer, I am now a slightly irked one even though the source of the irritation was not related to the base purchase at all - that is still perfectly good. I guess the lesson is that you need to take a bit of care not to be too clever for your own good.

Oh and by the way, I did eventually get the pen working. But I had to resort to my toolbox to do it - pliers and WD40 did the job. I suspect most people won't be that determined.

The short version - answer your damn phones.

The long version (which is mainly for personal cathartic reasons)...
I have (had) a minor insurance policy with a provider other than my main insurance provider. A while back, I set up a payment mechanism with them to charge the premiums to my credit card and it has worked fine. I got an invoice for the policy recently with the standard message saying they would charge my card as usual - all good, so I ignored it.

Then I got a letter from them saying that my payment had failed because my credit card expired. A little irksome - all the other organisations I pay in this manner send me a reminder that the card is about to expire so I can update the expiry date before there is a payment issue. More irksome perhaps because they only gave me 2 days to pay - at least that is what the letter said. The letter also gave me an 0800 number to ring to sort it out.

So I rang the 0800 number and negotiated my way down a phone tree. Then I waited and waited and waited and waited. You must all have experienced this before. Dumb muzak from the phone, every so often interrupted by a voice saying that my call is important to them. I gave up and tried again later in the day. Then again. Then the next day. And again. I tried other branches of their phone tree. I looked for alternative contact mechanisms. I could not get in touch.

Am I right in thinking that this is a pretty common phenomenon? Most people strike a customer contact service like this from time to time. It certainly isn't a first for me. Nor is it particularly extreme - I know of worse

So I did what most people do - I said screw them, I'll let the policy lapse. I got in touch with my main insurance provider - no waiting. They organised a replacement policy - no fuss, no bother and lower cost. Made me wonder why I hadn't done it earlier (Don't worry I know the answer - inertia.)

But then the original company calls me! The rep politely asked why haven't I paid my premium. I told them the reason (also politely) and said I was letting my policy lapse. Ah but "no" says the rep - I can't do that. Their procedure says I have to inform them in writing. So she would post me a form to sign and send back.

The form arrives in my mailbox a few days later. Also in my mailbox was another letter from the company saying that my account was in arrears and that if I didn't pay in 15 days the policy would lapse automatically. It is a bit hard to reconcile those two letters. Not to mention reconciling the 15 days time when they had been in such a hurry earlier.

But the reason why I thought to record this. Both letters finished with a cheery invitation that if I have any problems at all, I should call their 0800 number!

I was reading an article the other day about how Dell is really struggling in the modern PC marketplace because of the changing emphasis to tablets, smartphones and the like.

Today I spent a bit of time researching a new laptop for a colleague. In the old days (a couple of years ago when I bought the Dell I'm typing this on) you could go to the Dell site and design the machine you wanted - how much memory, disk, and so on. It was a great service that the other sites didn't offer. It is so much better to buy a computer when you can spec it exactly the way you want it and can do all the necessary price vs feature tradeoffs.

Now on the Dell (.co.nz) web site what you get are a bunch of pre-packaged configurations - i.e. the same as everybody else. The only real customisation you can do is change the colour of the lid. (I'm not counting the after-market add-ons that they try to sell you - that just makes it worse).

Could it be that Dell's problem isn't the changing marketplace but the fact that they have forgotten their roots and left behind the customer service that got them into the top position that they are now losing.

This consumer marketing musing brought to you by my guilt in not posting here in forever.

Oh yes they are - aust-sf-fan-fun.livejournal.com/24962.html.

YES!!!. Screw the olympics, Curiosity is the real news today, this week, this month...

I feel the weight of repetition (repetetetititition) but it does look as if the only reason I post here any more is to note the fact that I'm not posting here any more. Before the beginning of June it was because I was busy with work and con organising. After the con(s) it was because I was busy with work and dealing with the aftermath of all the bugs I had caught at said cons.

The whole post-con let down is a well known phenomenon. I'm sure people have written about it, but I can't be bothered trying to look it up. And there you have the problem "can't be bothered". It isn't that I'm not interested, but that I can't really work up the energy.

On the other side of the coin, I did buy a big bundle of books at the cons. Not feeling like doing anything else causes me to revert to my default state - reading.

Normal transmission will be resumed as soon as I feel like it.

There are a couple of cliches around conventions - they become cliches for a reason.

1 - if you are running a con you won't get to see it. Tick! I saw practically nothing of unCONventional apart from the SJVs and a bit of time in the floating market. I did however get to spend time talking to folks - always the best bit anyway.

2 - if you attend a con, you will get sick. Tick! I left for the airport almost immediately after the con finished. By the time I'd checked in, my throat was burning and my memory of the flight itself consists entirely of trying to suppress nausea. The only positive is that it feels like it is the sort of cold that should be on the way out by the time I have to take off for Continuum.

It appears I haven't posted anything here for ages. But then there is a rather hollow echo whenever you step into DW space these days. Buton the off chance anybody is still reading here and wants to know what I am up to - take a look over here. Particularly have a look at the pages associated with programming.

So, yes, I will be at Continuum 8 - think of it as recovery therapy.

Time once again for my annual assessment of the state of the nation's education based on one financial transaction - the purchase of Girl Guide Biscuits. In recent years there has been a steady improvement in the quality of price and change calculation. So what happened this year?

I'm cutting down consumption - I only asked for three packets, all of the same time. Rather than attempt to multiply a simple amount ($3.50)by three, the Guide looked blank and stared at her mother. The mother dithered and consulted the cheat sheet that comes with the boxes of packets. She still got the calculation wrong. Wrong in a way that couldn't even be explained by reading the wrong row of the cheat sheet.

Oh dear.

It appears that the Wellington region's second largest* seller of SF/F new books is closing down. Rather surprisingly, that title belongs to Dymocks Queensgate - at least until the end of the month. The staff member who told me thought the owner should have played up that genre angle. The thing being that although they shifted plenty of product and the owner is a fantasy fan, they never made a point of promoting it.

Personally, I'm not convinced. The pressures on retail bookstores are well known (high prices, high overheads, cheaper internet alternatives) and these are much worse in the sf/f genre area. As fans we tend to be price-smarter and more fickle shoppers than average - it can work to our disadvantage at times like this. However, I'm not going to be very upset about the passing of this particular store - they've never been involved in the fan community the way the late lamented City Dymocks was.

*Duh - Arty Bees is the largest. Also worth noting that the ranking is just anecdotal from the reps and therefore obviously doesn't include parallel imports.

Dave Cake is reporting that there have been no nominations for FFANZ, so the nomination period has been extended for a week.

So, I say to you - I would very much like to see one of you at unCONventional in June. So go on, put your name forward. Nominators are easy to find. Do it!

Nominations are now open for the 2012 Fan Fund of Australia and New Zealand (FFANZ). FFANZ in 2012 will send one Australian science fiction fan from Australia to the 2012 New Zealand Natcon, unCONventional, in Auckland from 1-4 June.

Prospective candidates will have until March 1st 2012 to file the documents required to have one’s name placed in nomination and added to the ballot. The ballots will be published and distributed in early March, and voting will run from March 12-April 9th.

Candidates should file the following documents:

• A brief letter stating one’s intent to run for FFANZ 2012.
• A nominator and a seconder, preferably a nominator from Australia and a seconder from New Zealand.
• A 100 word or less platform statement specifying the candidate’s reasons for running and qualifications for becoming the 2012 FFANZ delegate.

The duties of the winning candidate will be as follows:

• Travel to New Zealand and attend unCONventional, the 33rd New Zealand Natcon, in Auckland from 1-4 June 2012 .
• Visit and get to know as many New Zealand Science Fiction fans as time will permit.
• Become the Australian FFANZ administrator until a replacement administrator is found, normally this happens when the administrator role is handed over to the succeeding eastbound delegate (in 2014 if a race is run every year).
• Raise funds and maintain an account to be used by the next eastbound delegate(s) in 2012.
• Promote connections between Australian and New Zealand fandom by a trip report or other means.

Please feel free to distribute this message to your fannish networks.

A while back I commented about how well thought out a gift from my power supplier was. The send out a small am/fm radio that was ideal for inclusion in an emergency kit. I just want to mention them again because they have now sent out another entirely fit for purpose item - a hand crank torch. Again, ideal for an emergency kit. Worth remembering that this company is based in Christchurch so the motivation is obvious, but still an extremely well thought out item. Just to prove that it wasn't a fluke.

Worth also pointing out that the company is consistently at the cheap end of the power pricing comparisons and their power generation side doesn't burn fossil fuels.

Yes, I do have that "it is too good to be true" feeling.

So have any of you geeky types been to your school reunions? What were your experiences? The reason I ask is that my old high school is having a major anniversary reunion at Easter this year. I wasn't even considering going, but over xmas down south I had a couple of conversations(1) where I was actively encouraged to attend. The thing is, I suspect that I have nothing in common with old school mates. My experiences whenever I've bumped into old fellow inmates is that the lingua franca of such encounters is children (and now grandkids) - a language which I do not speak. It doesn't help that I'm from a rural area and most people stayed in that environment when I didn't.

So are my concerns justified, or have you had good experiences? Of course I may not be able to go anyway - work commitments and money might get in the way (and if I had plenty of time and money, I'd be going to Swancon or Eastercon for sure).

(1)The two conversations were both with pairs of sisters who went to the same school. The older sister of each pair was called Bronwyn and the younger was in the same year at school as me. The fact that I find that worthy of note goes a long way to explaining why I suspect that I will be out of place at a reunion.

I have on occasion remarked that Wellington seems keen to get rid of me and reluctant to take me back. Traveling down South this year it was the other way around. First the long term parking I had pre-booked (and pre-paid) was full and I had to be directed elsewhere. The the flight had a whole bunch of small delays including a long wait on the plane waiting for takeoff clearance.

On the way back, the plane arrived early. Then the luggage from the flight was unloaded so swiftly that it was already on the carousel by the time I had walked there straight from the plane. Then without fuss or bother the parking attendants waived my ticket for my alternative parking so I didn't pay any extra.

Good to be home.