Exciting Apil and Good ol'fashioned trip to the Zoo.

 Well April 1st in New Zealand, this month is going to be a potentially life changing one for me. Back in October you may remember that I mentioned I had graduated university, around this time I also applied to be on the JET Programme. Seems like so long ago I applied, applications closed in November, interviews were in February and now in April the news of who got in will come out, goes without saying fingers will be crossed all month, but hopefully it will be in the next week or two.

Also it was Girlfriends birthday last week, since she loves animals we decided to go to the Zoo. Unfortunately the Wellington Zoo isn't very large or impressive compared to some of the other Zoos I have been too. However Its rarely crowded which is a definite advantage. 

You even get to feed the Giraffes if you want to, Im not sure if other Zoos offer that although I imagine that in really popular ones it would be hard to find the time for everyone to do it. My Girlfriend and I even held some branches in our mouths (dared to by the Zoo Keepers) and they took it right out of mouths before licking our faces haha all good fun.

 

 Also in a completely unrelated topic Iv mostly been playing Tribes Ascend

lately, its a load of fun and free to play. You can download it on the website or you can email Macguffinsc@gmail.com and Ill send you a referral  for it.

Rember not to get fooled by anyone this April 1st too =)

Why you shouldnt take break late.

So now that I have a now have a job things have been very busy for me, time seems to just go by so quickly. I have been working very hard lately, and tend to take my breaks after just finishing a current load of work, so usually this means that I start and finish my break 3-5 minutes later than the rest of my work mates, instead of pausing it and just taking it straight away.

So why shouldn't you take your breaks late? Because you'll miss the chance to meet this guy.

Seriously, all my work mates got to meet Stephen Fry! I mean, Its not like I'm a big Stephen Fry fanboy or anything, but still I cant believe I missed him by just a couple of minutes. Such is life though, being able to pay rent is cool too...I guess.

Well anyway here is a funny like video someone made about him.

 

Other stuff update:

Well if you remember that I went to a casting call for The Hobbit I actually got an email from there, basically saying "Still interested? We just want to know if you are, not saying we have anything for you to do yet.." so that's kinda cool, might still get a chance to be in it =)

Life with a job update

First week over for my new job, things are fairly relaxed and its an enjoyable way to make money for the meantime. Only real complaint is the weird hours, 8:15 to 4:45 really? 9am starts give me another 45 minutes to sleep in the morning, doesn't help that I stay up till around 1:30am every night still though. Its nice that we can go home after we finish all the work though, so I usually finish about 3 and get to spend some time in the sun (pretty rare for me actually haha). We have a big storm on atm though, but before the storm started I was able to go down the seafront and snap some pictures of this friendly sting ray.

He was just siting there for some reason, some boats scared him away but 5 minutes later...

Smaller eagle ray stole his spot, I dunno why they love it maybe its comfy there...

Almost Disastrous First Day of Work.

 So after not working in a couple Months today was my first day back in a paid role. The job is fairly easy and pays well working for the Department of Internal Affairs, unfortunately (for me) it starts at 8am. Now I'm the kind of person that routinely stays up past 3am so that doesn't give me a lot of time for sleep, so I thought to myself why not enjoy my last night of unemployment with some drinks and video games.

After a great time with my friend on Starcraft 2 team games, just jerking around but somehow still winning games I realized I was finally getting sleepy, and decided get some sleep...however I noticed that I had drunk around half my bottle of Whiskey already (1 litre bottle).

 Funny how it runs out so quickly when you're having a good time with bros over Skype on a Monday night. So after drinking some water and and setting my alarms for 6:30 I nestled in for a good 4 hours sleep. I awoke the next morning feeling strange, as 6f3in male I take my drink quite well but for the first time in a very long while I awoke with a slight headache and still felt partly drunk, which was interesting because the walk to work felt very relaxed. Hoping I wouldn't smelt of whiskey I went in to start my training.

Things were going quite well until around 10am, when I started to feel very queasy, I tried to put it out of my mind but the floor we were training on had a problem with the air conditioning and was rather stuffy. My mouth was starting to fill with saliva they way it does right before you throw up, I started to envision throwing up all over the office on my first day but tried to put it out my mind and continue working.

I excused myself at that time and said I was going out for a quick fresh air break, after entering the stairwell I saw the door to the male bathroom and felt on the verge of throwing up, I tried to enter the bathroom but it had a code lock door..

"Shit whats the code I thought" As I tore open my pockets looking for the piece of paper with the code on it. I started to type in the code, put it in and turned the lock. It wouldn't open. I did it again, and again and again. It wouldn't budge. "FUCK" I thought, "this is worse than defusing a bomb". I had no choice but to go back and ask for the code again, I tried to swipe myself back into the office but I couldn't find the thing you put your card against. I began to panic thinking what would I tell the boss if i throw up in the stairwell and had to bang on the door to let me back in. "This cant be happening, only retards in tv shows do this shit" I lamented.

 But then fortune smiled on me and someone came out, I asked them if they knew the code and they put it in for me and I was able to get into the bathroom I immediately went in and splashed water against my face, I stood there for about a minute and the coldness made me feel better. In the end I didn't throw up and was able to go back to work without incident.

Thank you merciful God.

Oh by the way, I had the right code for the door, I was turning the nob the wrong way.

PS: Ever notice how a lot of people right "paided" instead of "paid"?

A hobo no longer.

 So after updating my CV a bit (pictured above) and getting a bit of luck I was able to land a new job and my extended vacation after studying. Technically this will be my first real job for the new year, and after eating and living very cheaply for awhile I am looking forward to being able to buy frivolous items again that I don't really want or need.

 Was tempting not to go to the interview though, outside the building there was a shop opening promotion that was giving away a lot of free stuff. While there I saw 3 people get new Ipods, but the line to spin the prize wheel was too long so I decided I would rather have a steady income for a bit.

  And in actually interesting news, an Amnesia the Dark Descent sequel is in the works! I'm fairly excited for this as a big Amnesia fan, the title "A Machine for Pigs" for the sequel throw me off at first, but what the developers had to say about it made it sound very intriguing. Hopefully they will remember what made the first game good, it was a true survival horror where you're only real defense was to run or hide from the creatures following, while the dark was easier to hide in it also reduced your sanity so you insensitively didn't want to go into it, leading to an feeling off dread and discomfort that amplified the other effects in the game.

All too often I see games labeled as horror, when really they are shooters with something that just comes out and says Boo, jump and shock scares get you for a moment but don't leave a lasting sensation of dread which is where Amnesia (and so few other games) have succeeded.

Average horror game.

Now if you look back to the picture for the cover of the next Amnesia game, you might notice something. While its called "A Machine for Pigs" this gives your mind the image of a slaughter house, and you assume the meat hanging from the chain is a pig, but if you look closely it could all just as easily be a human torso without any limbs. Your imagination does the work for generating the horror which is why Amnesia truly disturbs some people.