Category: Travel

Greetings from Australia!

Posted on By Wil

Greetings from Australia! I’ve been here for something like four days (I say “something like” because the time travel thing that happens when you cross the International Date Line is still confusing me), and I just love it.

Anne and I are in Melbourne, which I’ve found to be an absoulutely wonderful city. My sample size is very small, but every Australian I’ve encountered since I’ve been here has been friendly, kind, and generally awesome. The food is fantastic, and the city itself is beautiful.

When I’m not rehearsing for Thursday’s performance at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Anne and I have been exploring the city. Yesterday, we made music by dancing around in front of a giant theremin, walked up and down about a dozen alleys (I think they call them “laneways” or something like that, here) that were covered with all sorts of gorgeous street art, and ate a pizza that was covered with nutella, strawberries, and slivered almonds. If you’d told me three days ago that I would eat that on purpose, I would have told you that you were crazy. If you’d bet me a million dollars that I’d actually enjoy it, I’d now be in your debt for the rest of my life.

So, yanno, build the time machine, meet me in Melbourne last Sunday, and start planning to make enough money from me to fund the construction of your time machine.

Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I helped build that time machine?

Restaurants I’ve fallen in love with: Cookie in the central business district, and The Local Taphouse in St. Kilda. Food I’ve fallen in love with: all of it, especially baked beans on toast for breakfast. And even though Anne wants to kill Vegemite with fire, I’m starting to like a thin smear of it on toast with honey or marmalade.

In case you’re here in Melbourne: come to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on Thursday for Video Games Unplugged: Symphony of Legends. It’s going to be amazing. Then, come to Supanova this weekend!

The weather has been nasty and cold, but it’s supposed to start turning around today, just in time for us to go to Brisbane on Monday. I’m super excited to have a few days to myself on the Gold Coast before Supanova happens there, a week from Saturday.

… I just realized that I haven’t yet listened to Men At Work or INXS in the original Australian, so I think I should go do that before I go to rehearsal.

Question for Locals (in Melbourne and Gold Coast): Can you suggest a “must see”, “must do” and warn me off of “not worth your time” activities? Anne and I like to get away from touristy things and find places that locals enjoy.

I forgot to mention that I’m coming to Australia

Posted on By Wil

This Friday, I'm heading to Melbourne to present Video Games Unplugged with Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub. The show is going to be amazing: the MSO will play music from games like Bioshock 2, Heavy Rain, and Final Fantasy. As the music plays, they'll show the games on a huge screen. And did I mention that it's presented by Scott, Kris, and me? Yeah, that too.

I'm also going to be at Supanova in Melbourne April 13-15, and at Supanova Gold Cost April 20-22.

I've never been to Australia before, and though I'm a little unsettled by the idea of a 16 hour flight, I'm currently about 55% excited, 45% teetering-on-an-anxiety-attack-about-the-whole-thing.

Because of the International Date Line, I leave on Friday, but I don't arrive until Sunday. Then, on the way back, I actually land in Los Angeles four hours before I take off. I'm considering wearing a bowtie and a fez for the trip.

Someone found my Kindle on the airplane this weekend. I’d really like it back.

Posted on By Wil

I left my Kindle on an airplane this weekend (post-convention exhaustion will do that to you), and someone found it.

I know that someone found it, because they've been using my account to buy games and books. Based on the purchases, I'm fairly sure the person who found my Kindle (which is named Wheatley) is young, possibly a teenager or a college student. He or she likes Scrabble, Battleship, Spelling Star, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and something called Telesa. He or she also hopes to learn Samoan, French, and Spanish. He or she has spent a fair amount of my money on these things.

I used Amazon's Personal Document thing to send a note to my Kindle, thanking the person for finding it, and telling them that I can be contacted at [email protected] to arrange its return.

I'm hopeful that this person will do the right thing and get in touch.

*Updated*

I called Amazon, reported it stolen, and they deactivated it after refunding me the fradulent purchases.

This isn't the end of the world; I can afford a new Kindle (thank Steve the Fruitbat), and in the grand scheme of things, it isn't the biggest of deals… but I sincerely hoped that whoever has my Kindle now would have read the note I sent to it, which is titled TO THE PERSON WHO FOUND MY KINDLE, and gotten in touch to return it to me. I want to believe in the basic goodness of people.

I really hope that it wasn't just taken by some kid who decided to keep something because, you know, Finders Keepers. I really hope that it was taken by some dirtbag who turned around and sold it to a kid who is too young to know that "this Kindle comes with whatever you want and you never have to pay for it, just give me fifty bucks for meth!" or whatever is a pretty clear flag that something isn't totally honest with this thing.

Anyway, it looks like I'm not getting it back, and all someone has for their trouble is a useless piece of plastic and wires.

“It’s Like Geek Summer Camp for Adults.”

Posted on By Wil

Our second day was spent at sea, which would normally mean it's time to sleep in… but we had a Q&A panel at 9:30am (6:30am, according my my jet lagged brain) so I was up nice and early (damn early… too early… according to my brain) to make it there on time.

I'd guess that about 1/4 of the Seamonkey population came out to interrogate all of the performers, and we had as much fun as we did last year. As expected, The Hodgman and the F. Tompkins were hilarious.

After the Q&A… I can't remember what I did. But it's safe to assume that I spent the remainder of the day sitting by the aft pool, reading and sunning myself, and making sure that the inside of the pirate ship still worked.

You know, I realized that I didn't make notes for every day, because I was too busy just enjoying every day. I guess that's why I don't have lots of video of my kids when they were little, because it was more important to me to be there than behind a camera.

So let's just wrap this up like this: The cruise was amazing. Anne observed that it's like Geek Summer Camp for Adults, and I was as impressed by her observation as I was jealous that I didn't make it first. By the end of the cruise, I was looking forward to the next cruise with the same excitement and "is it time to go yet?" excitement that, until last week, had been reserved exclusively for PAX.

Every single one of the shows was great to watch, but it was the "second stage" stuff: the Karaoke, the other Karaoke, the Open Mic, the Joseph Scrimshaw Show, and the two DJ Flans dance parties that really blew me away. These events were more intimate than the big stage shows, and felt like they were more about all of us doing a thing together than they were about us enjoying watching a thing together. If there's one reason everyone should go on a JoCoCruiseCrazy (seriously, enough of us so we can get a whole boat without any Snorks to complain at us about things), that's it.

I'm sure there are other stories to tell about the cruise, but I'm drawing a blank. If there's something from our voyage that you'd like me to write about, leave a comment and I'll see what shakes out of my brain, which is convinced that it's still on the boat.