Alden Bates' Weblog

I totally didn't mean to go so long between posts. Anyway!

So last week I headed up to Auckland (with Jeff, who will no doubt comment on this entry) to see Kraftwerk live in concert at the Auckland town hall. Once we presented our tickets at the door, we were affixed with some sort of tag, which I suspect may have been tracked by satellite, and directed to our seats in the circle. Although it was noted on the tickets to start at 8, it actually took a while possibly because people were still coming in (and continued to come in after Kraftwerk had started).

Finally strange electronic music began to play, the lights dimmed, and then four silhouettes became visible against the drape along the front of the hall. To audience applause, the drapes opened to reveal Kraftwerk playing The Man-Machine. Fantastic!

Behind the band, a video display assaulted us with retro computer graphics (occasionally with seizure-inducing flashing effects) the most sophisticated-looking being a wireframe head during Music Non-Stop. Dead groovy. There was also occasionally live action footage, such as the Tour de France and vintage model clips for the appropriate songs.

Their new songs were, of course, well received. I'm wondering if Showroom Dummies with its talk of breaking glass was possibly inspired by the 1970 Doctor Who story Spearhead from Space.

Two hours after it started, the concert ended, and three days later I'm still humming Kraftwerk tunes. I'ma definitely going to have to buy some more of their albums. A superb concert, and I hope they come back to do another sometime soon.

Another wave of Robot Heroes has turned up, so it's time to play guess the Doctor Who title!

Can you guess the Doctor Who story title represented in this picture?

Edit: The answer was "The Unicorn and the Wasp", as represented here by Unicron and Waspinator (Not to scale).

You may remember this post and my complaint about the predictive text function on my old phone. I remembered that post, and decided to try the same test on my new phone, so I started a new text message and attempted to type "bumblebee". Just like on my old phone, my new phone decided I meant "bunckeade". WTF? They're not even the same brand of phone! Surprisingly I've had several hits from people searching for the word "bunkeade" on search engines...

The predictive text on my new phone is an improvement though, apart from the fact that for some reason hitting the key to enter a period or comma at the end of a word is very slow.

Also, the red LED for indicating incoming messages is located behind the black speaker grill and looks quite evil when it flashes. I approve.

On the downside: I still haven't worked out how to get my custom ringtone onto it. And another thing that bugs me about the phone design is the "speaker" button on the keypad right under the up/down button, which means sometimes when I get a text message, I accidentally hit the wrong button and end up ringing the sender.

So, perhaps spurred by the massive change in American politics, New Zealand has also swung massively, though in this case it swung from left to right.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark: Gone!
Finance minister Michael Cullen (no relation): Gone!
Mischief-maker Winston Peters: Gone!

In the latter case, Winston's party, NZ First, didn't reach the 5% vote threshold or win any seats, so they got no MPs in, unlike ACT, United Future, The Jim Anderton Party, and the Maori Party, who all got fewer party votes but won electorate votes. You can see the complete party votes and MP tally on TV3's Decision '08 site.

Much as I don't like Winston and was actually quite pleased he didn't get in, it somehow seems unfair that NZ First's party vote should theoretically have gotten them 5 MPs in parliament but didn't due to the 5% threshold. I can't argue with the results though.

Though politics may be a bit more boring for the next three years, I hope this allows the government to actually get something done, rather than messing about trying to keep Winston in line.

No, not the American ones, though they've started voting today.

We're only a few days out from the NZ general election and predicting a winner is not as clear cut as it once might have been. National isn't polling high enough to form a clear majority, and neither is Labour, so if the votes follow the polls, ultimately they'll have to rely on the support of minor parties. At the moment this looks like it may be down to whoever the Maori Party is willing to team up with, so at the moment both Helen Clark and JohnKey* are trying to outdo each other with platitudes in the hope of making their respective party a more attractive prospect.

I'm still largely undecided on who I'm going to vote for. I'll probably decide on the day (if I bother at all).

*One thing I have decided on is that "JohnKey" should be pronounced the same way as Donkey from the Shrek movies.