26 August, 2010 in Friends, Music by Aonghas

KBB Music Festival 2010

I had my last assessment for the first half of the semester this morning, which was a 20% interview for my design project. I had felt a bit iffy about the whole interview beforehand but it turned out to be not too bad (well, fingers crossed!). The interviewer we were assigned to asked a couple of curve ball questions but ultimately I was just pleased when it was over.

Throughout this week the annual KBB Music Festival is being held at the Town Hall. Calum went to listen to a few sessions earlier in the week so I thought I’d go to watch this afternoon seeing as I didn’t have any lectures after my interview. As luck would have it, this afternoon’s programme included various schools’ symphony orchestras including Cleo’s orchestra from Epsom Girls’ Grammar School. Calum and I arranged to meet outside the Town Hall before the afternoon session started so we could sort out the cameras for filming and taking photos.

Epsom Symphonia played well at the KBB Music Festival

The afternoon bracket of performances started at 1:30pm with Macleans Symphony Orchestra. They played a few pieces and ended with Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 by Elgar. The Avondale College orchestra followed before Epsom Symphonia took the stage. As the players started moving into their places, I scanned through the orchestra until I spotted Cleo at the back near the huge bass drum. Their conductor Peter Thomas was applauded on to the stage before the orchestra opened with their first piece, The Barber Of Seville Overture by Rossini. Their following pieces, Nimrod by Elgar and Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre were played just as well as their first. I’m not sure what it is, but I think orchestra performances are always that much more exciting when you know someone who’s playing in it.

Calum had to leave quickly straight after Epsom performed because he needed to get back to uni, but I thought I’d stick around just to hear some of the other orchestras since I had no other commitments for the rest of the day. After a couple more orchestras performed, I was pleasantly surprised when I was tapped on the shoulder by Cleo. She had returned from being backstage and introduced me to Sunny, a school friend she was with. I later found out that Sunny played the oboe in the Epsom Girls’ orchestra and was also the same year as Cleo. For the rest of the afternoon bracket, I sat together with Cleo and Sunny in the audience. There were a few pieces that didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, though I thought the combined “St Peter’s and St Mary’s Sinfonia” orchestra played quite well to finish off the session.

Highlights from KBB Music Festival Thursday 26 August 2010 (Orchestras)

Thanks to Calum for filming and uploading the video!

From left: Sunny, Cleo, Aonghas and Jordan (from Studio 2)

While everyone was leaving afterwards, I noticed Jordan from Studio 2 was doing some filming outside the main entrance at the Town Hall. In the spur of the moment, I decided to approach Jordan to ask if I could have a photo with him. I asked him if he remembered reading out my email on Studio 2 a couple of weeks ago and surprisingly enough he remembered me! Following the celebrity photoshoot with Jordan, I joined Cleo and Sunny through town on their food-hunting escapade. They were both hungry for food, though they didn’t know what they wanted to eat. After searching around for an undisclosed amount of time, they finally settled on Korean pancakes at this popular place on the corner of High Street and Wellesley Street. As if that wasn’t enough, we then made our way to Wendy’s afterwards to have another feed. Don’t get me wrong though, I did enjoy the experience and I found it amusing how we spent more time deciding what to eat than actually eating. We had an interesting conversation at Wendy’s including such topics as curry, porridge, teachers and lesbian friends. I also had a sudden realisation when Cleo told me that Sunny was in one of the dances at Chinese Extravaganza – I thought she looked familiar! Although we could have stayed and talked for ages, it was soon time to make tracks and head home.

Finishing all my assessments before the break, listening to awesome orchestra performances, having a photo taken with a television celebrity and making a new friend – not bad for a day’s outing .

Update: Jordan’s video clip was shown on Studio 2 a couple of weeks later and we managed to make an appearance in the background! Check it out here.

24 August, 2010 in Personal by Aonghas

Repping It Aonghas Styles

I was walking through the computer lab today at uni when I saw someone wearing a really cool jumper…

23 August, 2010 in Website by Aonghas

Blogging from an Android

I’ve had this app for blogging from my phone for a while now but I never got around to actually using it, so I thought I’d try it out and see how it feels.
I’m sure this will come in handy in future when I need to blog while I’m on the move.
And just for completeness sake, here’s a photo from my phone.
It’s a picture of my dinner from last night – homemade pizza! Yum, thanks mum

12 August, 2010 in Interests, University by Aonghas

Stepping Inside Stebbing

This morning I got the opportunity to take a tour around Stebbing Recording Centre Ltd. in Herne Bay. The trip was organised by the student branch of IEEE but it wasn’t until we reached the recording studio that I realised the guy taking us on the trip was Richard Stebbing, the son of the current owner and the grand-son of the founder of Stebbing Recording Centre!

Outside the front of Stebbing Recording Studios

The first part of the tour included an inside look at the recording studios. We were introduced to Murray, who gave us a brief overview of the companyand its history in New Zealand. The founder of the business, Eldred Stebbing, passed away last year and played a key role in the early days of sound recording in New Zealand. We were taken into the mixing room where we saw all the professional equipement they used and a massive sound board. Richard gave us a demonstration of a project he had been working on to automate sound mixing. We were told that their recording studio was one of the largest in the southern hemisphere and that they have hosted many international and local artists over the years, including Jamie Cullum, the White Stripes, Kenny Rogers and Split Enz.

After our tour of the recording studio, we took a brief walk down the road to their replication and manufacturing plant. According to their website,

Stebbing Recording Centre is the country’s only fully integrated replication plant, with all stages of the DVD and CD manufacturing process carried out on site to ensure meticulous quality control and efficient turnaround.

We started on the top floor of the plant where the mastering takes place. They use stamping equipment to create a master of the CD/DVD that can then be used as a template for pressing the discs. The equipment all looked really high-tech and the smell of a new DVD spindle was quite strong.

All the empty disc spools

Next we moved downstairs to the second floor. This is where the pressing and printing takes place. They use these large automated inject molder machines to press the discs from polycarbonate plastic and then all data is ‘stamped’ onto the CD/DVD. Then they are sent to the printing machines where they can either be screen-printed or offset printed depending on the type of design. At full speed, the machines are able to produce about 100 discs per minute! There were lots of DVD stacks that had already been printed and I noticed some familiar names like Outrageous Fortune, Footrot Flats and even Justin Bieber! Finally, downstairs we saw the packaging process where they had a large scale machine designed to package the DVDs into cases, complete with inserts and covers, labels for the outside, and even boxing the DVDs into cartons at the end. We also got to meet Richard’s dad, Vaughan Stebbing, who is the current owner of the family business. Overall it was a pretty interesting experience to see behind the scenes of a multi-million dollar business. Now whenever I see a commercial DVD, I’ll have a new appreciation for how it came to be.

11 August, 2010 in Personal by Aonghas

“Bee-nine” Makes National Acclaim

It all began during a chat with Nick one night a couple of months ago on MSN. I was trying to express an emotion but there was no suitable preset emoticon so I decided to come up with my own. That’s when “bee-nine” was born. Basically the expression is used to describe something that is “mmm fingerlickin’ good”. The term, based on the emoticon ‘B-9′  describes the face of someone wearing cool shades with a sly tongue poking out. I added a definition to Urban Dictionary and even created a bumper sticker to sell in my online store.

However, today bee-nine was taken to a whole new level when it was featured on TVNZ’s children’s show Studio 2. They were asking people to send in lingo and jargon they use so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to send in mine. Check it out below:

Studio 2 Lingo Feedback – “Bee-nine” by Aonghas

9 August, 2010 in Music by Aonghas

My New Favourite Band

They’ve been around for a while and I’ve heard some of their other songs which I thought were pretty cool at the time, but recently I’ve been really impressed with some of OneRepublic’s songs. Here are a couple of my favourite songs right now – Marchin On and Mercy. I didn’t even realise the second song was by them until I randomly found it tonight on YouTube!

Enjoy

OneRepublic – Marchin On

OneRepublic – Mercy

8 August, 2010 in Personal by Aonghas

A Random Questionnaire

Well, I was bored tonight so I did a Google search for “random questionnaire” and clicked on the first link that came up. I don’t usually do these kinda things but I needed something to help me waste time so here it is:

1. Why aren’t you with the person you love? That’s a good question.
2. Is it cute when you get kissed on the forehead? It would be!
3. What are you listening to? A clip off The Simpsons with Bill Cosby. Funny!
4. If the year consisted of only one season, which would you choose? Err.. I think I’d have to go with Spring. When it’s not too hot, but without all the rain.
5. Could you go out in public looking like you do now? Sure. Might need to fix the hair up a bit first though.
6. What was on your mind mostly today? Working out how much time I had before all my Uni assignment deadlines.
7. Do you like to cuddle? I sure do
8. What’s the best feeling in the world? Making other people happy.
9. Would you rather have your nose or tongue pierced? Neither!
10. Do you like the rain? Not when I don’t have an umbrella. I hate that feeling of slowly getting wet.
11. What did you do today? I sat in a couple of Chinese classes at church with my brothers to see what Chinese School was like.
12. Who was the last person you fought with? I don’t remember… nobody recently I hope.
13. Can you handle the truth? Sometimes it’s hard. But I try my best.
14. How often do you hold back from saying what you are thinking? Quite often, especially if I don’t know the person well.
15. Last night, did you go to sleep smiling? Probably not. But I wasn’t angry or anything!
16. Where did you sleep last night? Where I usually do, in my bed.
17. Did you have a good day yesterday? Yeah it wasn’t too bad. Got to hang out with a few friends and only had two lectures.
18. In the next 4 months, what are you looking forward to most? Passing all my courses this semester.
19. What are you wearing? Jeans, t-shirt, thin black hoodie.
20. What is bothering you right now? Not being able to know what people truly think.
21. Was last New Year’s enjoyable? I think it was a pretty typical new years for me. Stayed home.
22. Do you wish you had the chance to tell someone something right now? Absolutely.
23. Who would you want to be tied to for 24 hours? Haha can I choose more than one person?
24. Did you ever waste too much time on a certain boy or girl? Other people tell me that I do.
25. How was last night? Depends how late you mean
26. What is your mom listed under in your phone? Her full name. I like my contact list being organised.
27. Would you ever live with anyone on your top friends?  I don’t have any “top friends” on Facebook, but yeah there would be a few I’d consider.
28. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them? Yes. Though I think they might have found out on their own later on.
29. Has anyone disappointed you recently? Yes, sadly. I’m still hoping they’ll make up for it in future though
30. What does your hair smell like? My hair is too short to smell right now. And it’d be awkward to ask my brother to smell it for me :S
31. Did you have a tree house as a kid? Haha yes, it was just a platform of particle board though so it broke up like weet-bix when it rained.
32. Do you like going to the dentist? Not particularly, but I like getting the free toothbrush and toothpaste afterwards.
33. Do you try to do a good deed daily? I don’t have a daily quota for good deeds, but I try to do them whenever I can.
34. Can you keep a straight face without smiling? Yes, I’ve just gotta be thinking about the right things.
35. Even been sailing? We got to sail on little yachts for primary school camp.
36. Ever been on a cruise? Nothing spectacular. I’ve been on the ferry to Devonport though!
37. Are you afraid of speaking to large audiences? If I know what I’m talking about then it’s usually fine.
38. Are you afraid to tell the truth sometimes? I’m afraid when the truth might hurt other people’s feelings.

Some pretty random questions in that batch. Maybe I’ll try a different one next time.

Source: http://prince.org/msg/100/294240

5 August, 2010 in Personal by Aonghas

“The Dream is Real”

'Inception' was simply mindblowing

Today I went to watch Chris Nolan’s new movie Inception with Hamish. Calum went to watch the movie on Tuesday night with a few girls from youth group  and said it was worth watching so I had some pretty big expectations from the start. The opening scene was quite abstract and I didn’t understand what was going on for at least the first 15 minutes.

I had heard from others that it was a pretty deep movie and that you had to concentrate hard to understand everything that happens, so I started to worry when I still didn’t fully understand what was going on. Luckily as the movie went on things started to piece together slowly, though it still took a while to get my head around some of the ideas.

The special effects were really well done and overall I thought the movie definitely deserved its hype. No wonder it’s the 3rd highest rated movie on IMDb of all time!

When I left the cinema at the end and was walking towards Queen Street I felt really strange. Like I know it sounds silly, but the movie made me doubt my own reality. What if I was actually dreaming? What if nobody else around me was actually real and I was just imagining it. Seriously, that movie had a pretty strong effect on me. I’d recommend it to anyone. In fact, I want to see it again!

Here is the movie trailer if you haven’t seen it yet:

4 August, 2010 in Website by Aonghas

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