Round-up

Its been almost two weeks since I have posted. The biggest thing that happened in this time was that Anna graduated. That was this last Tuesday. The ceremony was at City Hall. It was a really cool ceremony. They started with the doctoral students and for them they read out a little summary of what their work had been on. It was quite amazing to hear about some of the cool things these students had been working on. Another cool part was watching the traditional custom of some of the students. They had two garlands on and when they received their degree, they took off one of them and put it around the neck of the chancellor. When one of the students got her degree, here mother (I guess) got up and sang out a song for her. Everyone stopped to wait for her to finish. It was pretty cool.

Anna's dad had come over from Fiji for the graduation. It was nice to spend some time with him. We also had a barbeque for Anna on Sunday. Chu and I had marinated all the meats on Saturday night. We started cooking early so that a bunch of the food would be ready when the guests started arriving. Along with the guests the rain also arrived. We pulled out the blue tarp and tied it between the house and some trees to continue with the party. My flatmates, Andrew and Natalie also came for the party. We had so much food - I think we were eating for hours.

Rugby World Cup

The rugby world cup just started in France, and that's been dominating all news here. The All Blacks won their opening match against Italy resoundingly. As is their tradition, the All Blacks performed the traditional Maori Haka before the game started. The Italians got together in a huddle during this, a move that was taken as a snub to the haka.



I think it's really awesome that the All Blacks do this before every game. It's really cool to watch.

Last Friday, Chu and I went to see a real live rugby game here in Auckland. It was a different game though because it was the "rugby league". The Auckland Warriors didn't win though. But it was fun being out there in the field with all the very vocal rugby fans.

Pizza from Hell

Last week we stayed late at the Uni, so we decided to get some pizza. It was Chu, John, Corrina and me. We got the pizza from Hell's pizza.

You might have already heard about the backlash to their name and ad campaign, but it's actually quite a solid franchise here in New Zealand and they are planning on expanding to the UK and even the US.

Their marketing is pretty all-out though, snazzy ads, they've got the 666 prefix for the phone number, and actually a very cool web-site - http://www.hell.co.nz/ where you can select toppings and sauces and what side of the pizza gets what, and you can even play with the little flash devils :)

Flat-mates

You guys have been asking me for pictures of my roommates, I mean flat mates, so here it is. Next to me are Natalie and Andrew who have been living in this house for a while. At the other end is Amy who had just moved in a week before I did.

We had a flatmate night in and Andrew cooked some awesome risotto, chicken, grilled mushrooms and spinach. The mushrooms were simply divine, just a bit of feta and some oyster sauce, a few mins on the grill, and voila!

There are more pictures on the "week four" pictures on the sidebar.

Apple service in Auckland

This has to be the one of the shadier Apple service centres in the world. You have to go out behind some building and the service centre is located in an alley. But who cares, right? It's the service that counts.


So why did we go to the Apple service in the first place. Some time back Chu had spilt tea on her MacBook keyboard and was quite keen on making sure nothing was damaged. The campus techs were able to open it up, clean it and it worked fine - except for the iSight camera. So she took it into the Apple service centre. They found that when they unplugged the camera from the logic board and plugged it back in, everything worked... but, occasionally the camera wouldn't work.

Here is the quote from the service centre.I'm not sure if you will be able to read the text when I post this, so here is the transcript.

Problem: Customer going to bring machine in on Monday. Spilt coffee on machine camera now not working. All over keyboard area.

Solution: Disassembled MacBook and thoroughly inspected, but could not detect any evidence of liquid damage. Keyboard tested, all keys are functioning correctly. Confirmed iSight camera is not working correctly, intermittently is not detected by the system. MacBook thoroughly and repeatedly tested, all Apple service Diagnostic tests passed. Quote supplied for replacement logic board.

Condition: Nothing to note.

Price: $2104.89 (with labour $2403.00)

How do you go from "all diagnostic tests passed" to "quote supplied for replacement logic board"? Why does a $2000 computer take $2400 to fix when almost nothing is wrong?

Funny Sky TV Ad

I see this ad when I walk up from Parnell to the UoA campus. The walked by and even looked at it a couple of times before I really "saw" it :)

New Zealand has bananas?

Actually a lot of them. If you read the word in context, that is. I have heard the term "banana" applied to a person of East Asian origin who is more "white" inside, despite their "yellow" skin. But back in the US we use that term in hushed whispers and people giggle when they say it. But the bananas here in New Zealand have a conference of their own and took out a full page ad for it. As Chu likes to say, "Cool bananas man!"