Sarumata

Dom enjoys the piano

2012-01-22T15:40:00.002+13:00

Staying at Granny's

2012-01-16T10:22:00.001+13:00

We had a little birthday/late Christmas celebration over the weekend and stayed at Granny's house. It was lots of fun and we got to visit Tango in the morning! Dom stayed up very, very late, having had a sleep-in in the morning and a short nap in the car on the way down.

Painting

2012-01-01T14:09:00.000+13:00

Mum had a cool painting of a giraffe at her house - the canvas had been painted stripey green, then the outline of a big smiley cartoon giraffe had been painted or drawn on with vivid. Debbie asked if I could do something similar for Dom's room but with a dinosaur. This is what I ended up doing:

Not very much like the painting at Mum's place, but I like it.

Kelly Tarlton's - best bit

2012-01-01T07:56:00.001+13:00

This is the bit of Kelly Tarlton's which I remember from my childhood visit, and it didn't disappoint on a retun trip. The sharks looked a little smaller but the experience of being under water but dry was very, very cool. There was a ride past the penguins (which we didn't go on because of the queue), an open tank which Dom loved, a couple of side rooms with seahorses and eels and stuff, and the arctic exhibit from Chch, but the underwater tunnel was bestest.

*Photos taken with a Panasonic TZ8 on scn mode -> high speed burst (3M) -> speed priority.

2011 was ace

2011-12-31T12:53:00.001+13:00

2011 was a big year for the family. Debbie returned to work, Dom started preschool, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and started therapy. Debbie and I wrote an anthology of stories and had it accepted for publication. We took two trips up north to see family, had a few stories published (including the awesome podcast of Debbie's Upon a Star) and generally led busy lives.

Fingers crossed 2012 will have as many highs as 2011, possibly with fewer broken bones and tooth repairs :-)

More Dom + Self Portrait

2011-12-19T11:43:00.000+13:00

Bonus post!

Dom in December

2011-12-19T11:10:00.000+13:00

It's the holidays! Dom's having his last week at pre-school before a couple of weeks off, Debbie and I are getting some time to relax and unwind, and Dom is continuing to be awesome.

Dance intro

2011-10-14T09:21:00.001+13:00

Dom spent a few minutes dancing to the Kung Fu Fighting music video, and with the ability to restart the song at will on his ipad he got good at timing the start of his dance to the music:

Borrowed a camera

2011-09-25T21:28:00.000+13:00

I borrowed a Canon EOS 450D twin lens kit this weekend, and have been taking lots of photos. It's a fun camera and I'd love to win one in a competition some time! This is not to say that I don't love the TZ8 I just got - that's an awesome little camera. But I do like toys and could see myself owning many, many cameras one day.

I think I'm going to have to sell my old Sony H2 shortly. It's got a lot of life left in it but it can't compete with the convenience of the TZ8!

New camera

2011-09-22T20:39:00.000+12:00

The good folks at the Last Ocean Charitable Trust sent me a Panasonic TZ8 camera as a prize for being a finalist in the Last Ocean film contest. It's very cool! 12x zoom in a compact body, solid metal construction, and a nice, wide 25mm equivalent at the wide end of the zoom. It's a very nice camera indeed!

It hailed a bit

2011-09-13T19:20:00.001+12:00

At the river

2011-09-10T20:34:00.000+12:00

Some photos from a week ago. Note the awesome matching family t-shirts from Threadless (NZ$61 for 4 t-shirts including postage!)

Still more?

2011-08-21T16:41:00.000+12:00

For the grannies ;-)

Moar weekend - Optimus Prime!

2011-08-21T16:32:00.001+12:00

On Saturday Dom got to meet a 7 feet tall Optimus Prime at Toyworld. He thought it was awesome, and got a high five an a handshake (as well as his photo taken). We were pretty impressed by the costume too!

Swings and throwing rocks into the river remain popular also.

Lovely weekend

2011-08-21T14:26:00.000+12:00

The return of sunny weather has enabled us to have a very fun weekend, including many of Dom's favourite activities. We've taken the scooter out for a trip to the playground (with Dom balancing while Mummy or Daddy holds his hands and pushes), fed the ducks and geese and swans (with signets) at the artificial lake, eaten chicken mcbites at Maccas and had a ride on a miniature train. Debbie's cutting up some fruit for a walk and picnic by the river to round out an active, happy weekend. It's been so, so good!

Silly Entry

2011-08-11T07:03:00.001+12:00

With apologies for the accent ;-)

Dominic and the Last Ocean

2011-08-11T06:53:00.003+12:00

This is our serious entry for the Last Ocean film contest:

It was fun and easy to film - we just got dom to eat grain waves, play with bubbles and watch Kung Fu Panda on the green screen after school one day. He loved it. We had a few shots in mind that we wanted to get (looking up at penguins, standing on ice) and knew that if we recorded a variety of stuff for about 20 minutes from both eye level and high angle positions we'd be able to experiment.

There's a cash prize for the video that gets the most hits on youtube, so I may be tweeting about this film a fair bit in the next month (and facebooking too!).

More lake pics

2011-07-26T10:21:00.000+12:00

At 8x zoom a closeup of Dom produces some pleasingly shallow DoF (depth of field?).

Round the lake!

2011-07-26T10:07:00.001+12:00

Dom's weekend walks now take in a stroll around an artificial lake near our house (a pretty lake-ette with swans and ducks and native flora). It's a lovely stroll and, as he hasn't shown any strong desire to jump into the lake yet, Debbie and I get to relax as he runs around. I even got to take some photos last time :-)

Zoo!

2011-07-21T09:09:00.001+12:00

Dom had a pretty exciting day yesterday. Instead of preschool he got to drive in to Wellington, help us drop the car off to get the key re-synched with the immobilizer/central locking, visit the zoo with his grandma, have McDonalds for lunch (and a play on the playground there), visit Te Papa and finally go pick the car up and have a snooze on the way home.

It was a pretty full-on day and was super fun.

Dom in a cast

2011-06-13T19:33:00.000+12:00

Dom in a cast, June 2011 from Matt Cowens on Vimeo.

Radio NZ Interview

2011-06-12T17:13:00.002+12:00

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/artsonsunday/20110612

Interview with Amanda Fitzwater and me about our contributions to Tales for Canterbury, the fundraising short story anthology. We're the first part of the 'Chapter and Verse' segment.

It's a great interview - Amanda is very well-spoken and Lynn's a wonderful interviewer. The phone line I was on isn't great, but I'm pretty clearly audible if not richly toned. Running time is 8 minutes, 22 seconds.

Possible Salter Harris Fracture

2011-06-08T20:20:00.000+12:00

2 weeks in a cast. Bummer.

Dom's being very stoic about it all, which is a mighty blessing :-)

Colouring in

2011-04-20T09:21:00.000+12:00

One of these is a b/w pic I sent off to ASIM as an example of my art style (I'd love to draw an interior illustration for them some time). The other is a bit of colouring in I did in the last couple of days. Fun!

Creative writing exercise - The Issue

2011-04-05T14:04:00.002+12:00

Task - Choose an 'issue'. Plan and write a scene at school where the reader can guess the issue without the story explicitly saying it. Make sure to use language features!

My example:

The classroom was buzzing with activity when Shaun pushed the door open and stepped inside. He skirted around the group of desks nearest the door and headed for Ms Mitchell’s desk.

“Sorry I’m late, Miss,” Shaun mumbled, dropping a folded up note onto the desk.

Ms Mitchell looked up from her marking and blinked. “Shaun, where have you been?”

Shaun nodded at the note and thrust his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. He could feel eyes burrowing into his back as nosy classmates tried to eavesdrop. “It’s on the note.”

Ms Mitchell unfolded the note, read it quickly, then raised an eyebrow. “Really, Shaun, I expected better of you.”

Shaun spun on his heel and loped away from the desk, his head down. He caught sight of Sara out of the corner of his eye, sneering at him. He considered kicking her chair on his way past, but he knew he was on a short leash after his meeting with the deans. And Sara was originally from France. He really didn’t want to get into any more trouble.

“They call your parents?” Alexis asked as Shaun slipped into his usual seat. There was a poster in the middle of the table with a peace sign half coloured in. Alexis was drawing a dove in one corner while Simon wrote out their group’s definition of civil disobedience.

“Yeah. And said they’d stand me down if it happened again.”

“Stand you down? That’s so unfair.” Simon stopped writing and glanced over at Gunther. He was barking away as usual, flinging insults and paper at half the class. The fact that he was on the far side of the teacher’s desk was the only thing that kept Simon, Alexis and Shaun out of his line of fire.

“Guess I’ll just have to let him get away with it next time. Or grow my hair out before I stand up to him.”

“So unfair,” Simon repeated. He ran a hand over his freshly shaved head and looked out the window, sighing.

END
Guesses welcome as to what the 'issue' this story is based on is :-)

Drawded

2011-04-01T10:58:00.003+13:00

I drew these at school, apparently. They were in my drawer. I drawered them.

Tales for Canterbury is nearly at the $1500 raised mark! Have you ordered a copy? Only $25 including postage (within NZ and Aus)!

Tales for Canterbury Fundraiser Anthology

2011-03-23T10:56:00.002+13:00

Both Debbie and I have stories in the upcoming anthology "Tales for Canterbury". It's a short story anthology raising funds for the Red Cross appeal to help Christchurch. There are some big, big name authors included in the line-up and it looks like it's going to be a great collection!

Details are available at the Tales for Canterbury website, and pre-orders are now available at Random Static Press. There's free NZ-wide shipping for the print copy, too!

I made this promo video yesterday to help advertise the anthology:

At the beach (again)

2011-02-21T20:31:00.000+13:00

With many thanks to Debbie for taking such lovely pictures :-)

Book tetris

2011-02-14T20:10:00.000+13:00

Dominic has taken to using his books to create linear installation artworks. All over the floor. He's quite meticulous about the placement.

At one point he started placing a single toy on top of each book, but the fourth toy was a ball and it kept rolling off, so he discontinued the books and toys combo in favour of book purity.

Nommed!

2011-02-02T18:44:00.002+13:00

My short story 'No Hidden Costs' which is part of the A Foreign Country anthology has received one nomination for Best Short Story in the Sir Julius Vogel awards! If it's going to make it onto the ballot it'll probably need a bunch more nominations (big categories like Best Short Story are whittled down by number of nominations, I believe), but it's lovely that someone liked it enough to send in a nomination.

If you want to nominate it you just have to send an email to sjv_awards@sffanz.sf.org.nz which includes the following:

I would like to nominate Matt Cowens' story 'No Hidden Costs' in the anthology 'A Foreign Country' from Random Static Press for Best Short Story.

Name / Title of work: No Hidden Costs
Name of Producer / Author / Creator: Matt Cowens
What the work is: Short Story
Year of First Release: 2010
Publisher / Production company name: Random Static Press
How to contact the producer / author: *Put in my email address - although they already have it from the previous nomination*
What category you think the nomination belongs to: Professional awards
GENRE - science fiction
Contact details of the person making the nomination e.g. email or/and phone
number: *Put in your details*
Where to get a copy of the work: www.randomstatic.net

Optional
Why you're nominating it: (eg, "I'm Matt's mother and I think he's a very clever boy.")

It would be neat to make it onto the ballot, but there are a lot of excellent writers who I intend to nominate, so I'm not holding my breath. It was lovely to get an email letting me know that someone had taken the time to nominate No Hidden Costs though - thanks Helen!

Cute babeez!

2011-01-30T19:57:00.002+13:00

My folks very generously looked after Dom yesterday while Debbie and I went a-visiting. We saw Olive and her parents, who were all well and cute (Olive was cutest) and Willa and her parents, who were impressively relaxed and well for parents of a 1 month old. Olive and Willa are good babby. While we were visiting a moose tried to get smooches from Willa, but was blocked by deft fending skillz.

Some cool kids

2011-01-26T11:03:00.002+13:00

I love this photo. I have no idea how it came to be in my possession, but I love it :-)

Sir Julius Vogel Awards - nominating Gino

2011-01-23T06:31:00.004+13:00

I just nominated Gino for a SJV award for best fan art. It's easy! You just email them with a message with the following details:

I would like to nominate Gino Moretto for Best Fan Artwork for the cover of Star Ship Sofa No. 150.

http://www.starshipsofa.com/20100824/aural-delights-no-150-paul-di-filippo/

Name / Title of work: Cover art SSS 150
Name of Producer / Author / Creator: Gino Moretto
What the work is: Digital artwork
Year of First Release: 2010
Publisher / Production company name: Star Ship Sofa
How to contact the producer / author: *Put in Gino's email address*
What category you think the nomination belongs to: Fan awards GENRE - science fiction Contact details of the person making the nomination e.g. email or/and phone
number: *Put in your details*
Where to get a copy of the work:
http://death-from.blogspot.com/2011/01/cool-thing-from-last-year-sss-cover-1.html

If there are lots of different people nominated in the category and the organisers want to cut down the number of names on the ballot they'll look at how many people nominated Gino, so you should consider emailing a nomination yourself :-)

Preschool - day 2

2011-01-18T13:05:00.004+13:00

Dom just finished his 2nd half-day of preschool, and it went very well indeed. It's a lovely place with excellent staff and he seems to be starting to settle in :-)

Evidence on his clothes suggests some painting may have taken place, and we were told of his love for "unpacking things and moving them around". This is a habit we notice most often at home when attempting to tidy up :-)

Tauranga is fun!

2011-01-06T09:29:00.003+13:00

Dominic and I are on holiday in Tuaranga with Dom's grandparents. It's been a lovely, busy couple of days :-) We're flying back to Wellington later today taking some very fond memories and a few extra kilos with us...

Brought to you by the letter B

2011-01-01T07:34:00.002+13:00

First up is a photo of Dom on a bee ride, taken (I think) when he went on a farm walk at Lindale with his granny and mother.

Next is the ever-popular bridge over the Waikanae river. Strolling along the riverside, throwing rocks into the water (from the bank, not off the bridge), and seeing horses and plants and ducks is a lot of fun.

And lastly, bed. After a tiring day's travel down to Christchurch, replete with delays and gate changes and meltdowns and turbulence, Dom cooled off and settled in at his uncle's house with a bit of down time and snacks in bed.

Xmas pressie - 7 inch android tablet from Chinavision

2010-12-31T10:46:00.007+13:00

EDIT: Here's one of those 3 years ago size comparison pics:

Dom has long enjoyed playing with our ipod touch, so for xmas his grandmother wanted to get him something similar but with a bigger screen. An ipad would have been ideal if they were a little cheaper :-) As an alternative Dom got a 7 inch Android tablet from a place called Chinavision.com. I ordered it on his grandmother's behalf on the 12th of Dec. It arrived in NZ on xmas eve, and was delivered to our house on the first subsequent non-public-holiday day (the 29th?).

It's neat. Dom loves it!

What it does well:
- has a 7 inch touch screen. This is a lot bigger than an ipod touch.
- lets Dom browse photos using the touchscreen. He's already pretty good at navigating his way around the photo browser.
- plays the little, compressed videos I made for the cellphone.
- has speakers which are a good volume for indoor use (maybe not loud enough for the car or a plane?)
- Can connect to wireless and browse the web

What it struggles with:
- playing videos at medium to large resolution
- it takes a little longer to turn on than the ipod touch

It's a fantastic present for Dominic and he's very, very happy. It's also a timely one as we accidentally left our ipod touch on the plane on our flight down to Chch. It was found by the airline staff and picked up by Dom's grandparents and is awaiting collection so the story has a happy ending, and Dom will have 2 devices at his disposal for photo browsing and video watching in future :-)

Summertime, and the blogging is infrequent...

2010-12-30T17:35:00.003+13:00

We have been in the ocean 5 or 6 days a week since the middle of November, with the notable exception of our recent, lovely trip to Christchurch where we only made it into the sea twice in six days. We were there for the biggish after shock which was fun, with cars jumping and lights shaking on top of the parking building at Riccarton Mall. There are a number of nice photos from the past six weeks or so, and Dom's grandmothers enjoy photos of him, so I'll try to get around to uploading them in the next few days or weeks :-)

More podcasts

2010-11-23T14:40:00.004+13:00

So I've recorded a few more podcasts for EDF, had my accent described as 'plummy Aussie', and also put together a podcast of two of the stories from the A Foreign Country Anthology. And I youtubed a review of a USB condenser mic. It's nice to be between prizegivings and have some time to take a breather and work on my playing-with-toys skills. The next project is working out how successfully a $10 RCA switcher, $20 usb capture device, a $40 audio mixer, 2 mics and 3 cameras can be connected to a laptop to enable multi-camera studio-style shooting in the classroom. I *think* it'll work OK, but it remains to be seen how smoothly the switch on the RCA switcher moves and whether there'll be too much loss of signal during switching...

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Watch II - S6500fd

2010-10-27T12:20:00.001+13:00

Finally got around to taking some more watch photos - this time with the camera at school:

Censorship speech - Oct 31st

2010-10-24T13:08:00.002+13:00

His Honor Judge Hastings is giving a 2 hour speech on censorship at the Wellington Central Library on Sunday 31st October, 1.30pm to 3.30pm, mezzanine floor.

Assuming that's Bill Hastings he's a very entertaining speaker and, having been the Chief Censor for a number of years, knows his stuff :-)

Stephen Fry is awesome

2010-10-20T20:08:00.002+13:00

Part 1 of 6

Every Day Fiction podcasts

2010-10-13T10:10:00.003+13:00

Over the holidays I recorded a few podcasts of short stories for Every Day Fiction. It was a lot of fun, and it means that for the next 6 weeks (starting 2 days ago) there'll be a new podcast read by me up on the site each Monday night.

The podcast with the most ratings ever is sitting on 169:

http://www.everydayfiction.com/podcast-edf013-mr-sterne/

It would be awesome to get close to that for one of the upcoming podcasts, but I think that might be a little tough. The one from Monday has only been rated 5 times so far :P

http://www.everydayfiction.com/podcast-edf035-shakespeare-in-my-pocket-written-by-david-macpherson-read-by-matt-cowens/

One of the stories I recorded, Snowman by Shaun Simon, is the all-time top rated story on EDF. It's not hard to see why - it's a cracking wee read. I think (hope) I did it justice in the recording. It's a story with just the one voice (the narrator), which lends itself to a better reading from me. You can judge for yourself at about 9 or 10pm NZ time on the 18th!

List of upcoming and previous podcasts:
http://www.everydayfiction.com/features/podcast/

Fire Prevention Week

2010-10-05T15:24:00.003+13:00

Today's story on Every Day Fiction is a rather silly little story of mine called 'Fire Safety'. Debbie has a story coming up in a couple of days which is also about fire. They're both part of EDF's nod to Fire Prevention Week :-)

My story is here:

http://www.everydayfiction.com/fire-safety-by-matt-cowens/

UPDATE: Debbie's story is up -
http://www.everydayfiction.com/no-smoke-without-fire-by-debbie-cowens/

You can leave a comment and/or rating at Every Day Fiction if you like!

One more from the DSC-H2

2010-09-28T10:36:00.000+13:00

I'll pop into work in the next few days to grab the s6500 :-)

Macro photography

2010-09-26T16:51:00.006+13:00

I have decided it would be good to have some nice photos of a watch which belonged to my grandmother's... great uncle? Fortunately I have access to two cameras capable of taking decent closeup photos - my own Sony DSC-H2 and a Fuji camera at school (an s6500). So, in the next couple of weeks, I shall see what I can get in the way of nice snaps. Here's a starting point:

I was listening, Miss. Honest

2010-09-16T15:11:00.002+12:00

Professional development time was good this morning. Interesting topic and some solid drawing time combined :-)

When film criticism meets food fetishism

2010-09-14T17:52:00.002+12:00

"friends are important and they can help you feel batter..."

I am marking a lot in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully there will be amusing misspellings galore.

More great listening

2010-07-21T13:16:00.001+12:00

On the BBC iplayer:

The Brothers Faversham - half hour episodes, each telling the life story of a fictional Victorian gentleman. Episode 1 was a famous soldier, 2 a great detective. Season 2 started playing this week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dc9xb

The Consultants - 15 minute sketch shows that are brilliant. Episode 3 of season 1 is available at the moment. Apparently they made 4 series.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007vq04

I are subtle model

2010-07-17T14:52:00.000+12:00

See how much more subtle I am than Debbie and Dom!

Frosty morning walk

2010-07-12T09:25:00.000+12:00

The playground was covered in a light layer of frost this morning - very pretty, but very dangerous with a little guy who likes to run around, walk on fence posts, and jump up and down a lot. No injuries sustained but we did all come home a little chillier than when we left. Thank goodness for heat pumps, hot drinks and blankets :-)

Anthology preorders open

2010-07-01T17:20:00.003+12:00

The 'Future is a Foreign Country' anthology is now available for preorder from Random Static Press. It's got short stories from a whole bunch of kiwi writers including Anna Caro, Matt Cowens (that's me!), Dale Elvy, J.C. Hart, Tim Jones, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie and many others whose names I am not yet familiar with. The anthology is being released at Au Contraire, so they're expecting it to be in stock around August 2010.

Story & podcast online - The Tunnel

2010-06-29T18:43:00.001+12:00

Over at Wily Writers a flash fiction (under 1000 words) story of mine is now available. It's called The Tunnel, and it's available in text or audio format. The text version is an rtf file and the audio is a 2.8mb mp3 of me reading the story.

You can also leave a comment on the Wily Writers site if you want to :-)

http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=1631

On the Hour - on bbc iplayer now :-)

2010-06-27T17:42:00.001+12:00

Until 11:32pm Tuesday 29th June 2010, episode 1 of On the Hour is available to listen (no matter where in the world you are) on the BBC iplayer site here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007k3g0/On_the_Hour_Series_1_Episode_1/

Info about upcoming episodes is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fc97b

You can listen to it for free, for legit!

On the Hour

2010-06-22T07:48:00.005+12:00

I've listened to season one of the excellent news-parody radio series On the Hour over the past couple of days, and it is fantastic.

On the Hour at amazon.co.uk

Amazon's description - On the Hour is a legendary radio comedy renowned for its savage dissection of news and current affairs programming. It boasts a stellar cast of writers and performers who have gone on to feature in some of the best UK comedy of the last 15 years: Chris Morris (The Day Today, Blue Jam, Brass Eye, Nathan Barley, The IT Crowd), Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, I’m Alan Partridge, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Saturday Night Armistice), Steve Coogan (The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge, Knowing Me Knowing You, Coogan’s Run, Saxondale), Stewart Lee (Jerry Springer The Opera, Fist Of Fun, This Morning With Richard Not Judy), Richard Herring (Fist Of Fun, This Morning With Richard Not Judy), David Schneider (I’m Alan Partridge, Knowing Me Knowing You, The Saturday Night Armistice), Doon Mackichan (Smack The Pony, The Day Today, A Very Social Secretary, Brass Eye) and Rebecca Front (The Day Today, Fist of Fun, Big Train, I’m Alan Partridge, Nighty Night). It also features the first appearance of Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. This hilarious satirical comedy (originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4) formed the basis for TV show The Day Today.

The Day Today is excellent too :-)

Here's a wee preview of the start of episode one (on youtube despite being a radio show):

Dom's new t-shirt

2010-06-16T07:23:00.002+12:00

Debbie discovered this gem whilst shopping for nephew pressies:

I don't know what gaming system this is for but it looks like a handy reference :-)

Shave for a cure - return of the clippers

2010-06-15T17:42:00.004+12:00

4 students taking up the head-shaving challenge:

Playgrounding

2010-06-07T13:22:00.000+12:00

Saturday's morning stroll:

Incredibly traumatisingly awesome scary show

2010-06-05T17:19:00.002+12:00

I saw this many, many years ago and it freaked me out. And I loved it. It's in 8 parts on youtube - here's the first:

I've only rewatched the first minute and a half (to check that it's the show I remember) and it was already starting to make me uneasy. I hope the rest of it stands the test of time...

New toys

2010-06-01T17:23:00.003+12:00

I have been playing with a Fuji s6500fd camera, some photography lights (a 7-bulb and a 4-bulb), camera dollies, wireless lapel mics, home-made (by a student) volume adapters, e-cast TV-for-educational-purposes downloads, uploading clips to the school's Clickview video-on-demand server, jamendo.com free music downloads, voice recorders and shotgun mics.

In the last 2 days.

Not everything in that list is new - but everything except the voice recorders are 2010 New Things for me/the school.

This Media Studies gig is fun sometimes :-)

So Wrong It's Right

2010-05-27T14:58:00.003+12:00

Debbie and I have been listening to Charlie Brooker's excellent radio series So Wrong It's Right. It's available on the BBC iPlayer for a week after each episode airs. It's a very funny panel show with Brooker as the host and a range of highly entertaining guests.

We've also listened to one episode of The Museum of Curiosities (with Terry Pratchett and Shappi Khorsandi), and a lot of historical lectures by Mark Steele (with lots of jokes in them).

I'm about 2 hours into Sarah Silverman's autobiography. It's also very cool. The line that had me chortling to myself as I walked through the staff room this morning was something like:

The day he moved in he looked at me and said "I JUST GOT OUT OF PRISON!" with the joy one would say "I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD" and with the crazy eyes with which someone might say "I JUST STABBED A HOOKER IN THE FACE!"

Listening to stuff is fun!

Very busy

2010-05-13T13:51:00.001+12:00

Looking forward to the weekend, with nothing planned. And next week, with no parent teacher interviews, meetings in town, or shows to film.

Jenni's Angels' 2010 48 Hour Film

2010-05-03T06:46:00.004+12:00

or watch it on youtube

Coupon deal for mic?

2010-04-26T15:04:00.004+12:00

Trying to work out how to get a cheap deal on those shotgun mics.

http://www.shareasale.com/u.cfm?d=31203&m=26681&u=424628

I think that link should go through to the mic page, coupon code is 1eafeddf - hopefully :-) Expires 05/10/2010 (that's 10th May, not 5th of October)

Some podcast fiction linky

2010-04-22T20:46:00.004+12:00

Not sure how many of these stories I've linked to here:

Everyday fiction:
Ripples - by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks, read by me with my new shotgun mic.

Dead Weight - by Matt Cowens

Mr Sterne - by Michael Tracy (one of the site's all-time top-rated stories)

The Death Meter - by Debbie Cowens

Code Mustard - by Chris Allinotte

and my podbean account:

Hmm, must record and upload more stuff to podbean. It's looking a little bare.

The Supernatural Bus Driver (from twitter)

2010-04-18T20:29:00.002+12:00

the supernatural bus driver expects exact werewolf change, denies wolfman passengers from behind clawproof mesh

the supernatural bus driver asks the mummies to keep the demon babies quiet

the supernatural bus driver insists on seeing student IDs for cheap fares. Centuries old vampires pay full price despite baby-faces

the supernatural bus driver is already mad. Cthulhu rides at no cost.

* * * *
140 characters is an interesting limitation. It's a little like writing headlines.

Shotgun mic review

2010-04-13T13:23:00.010+12:00

I bought a 14.37 inch HDTZ HT-81 shotgun mic from suntekstore.com:

Worldwide Free Shipping: 14.37 inch Shotgun Microphone $31.91 (US)

After a couple days of using it I'm pretty impressed. The company had a problem with my credit card (possibly around the billing address?) so they emailed me to ask me to pay via paypal. Once that was sorted (2 days after placing order) the mic shipped within about 36 hours, took 11 days to reach me (Thursday before Easter through to a Monday). It was safely packaged in a bubble-envelope.

What you get:
- Gun microphone (14.37in / 36.5cm long / metal body)
- Stereo 0.25in (6.35mm) jack to mini 0.14in (3.5mm) jack adaptor
- Cable: 26.05ft (8m) 0.25in (6.35mm) jack - XLR cable
- Anti-wind foam cap
- Two microphone clips (one for hot/cold-shoe, one for mic stand)
- Storage box (Black)
- English instructional manual

Initial impressions:
I like this mic more than my old ATR-55 for a few reasons. It's slightly louder than the atr-55, which means it can be placed a little further away from the speaker and still get a really nice sound. Its construction is nice and solid. The battery compartment (AA) is a little tight, but you don't want the battery rattling around in there so that's not a problem. The sound is good for a cheap mic - easily as good as my old atr-55. In the video above you can hear the difference between the shotgun mic and a dynamic (non-powered) singstar mic.

I used it with an Olympus voice recorder too, and was very pleased with the sound. I recorded a podcast of a short story from everydayfiction.com - I'll link to it once it's up.

Advantages:
- Good length cable
- Cheap price
- Free shipping
- Nice sound

Disadvantages:
- The mic clips are usable but are hard plastic (like my old atr-55 ones) and thus may break rather than bend over time. They're cheap to replace though.

Verdict:
I am very glad I picked up one of these HT-81 14.37 inch shotgun mics from suntekstore.com. Great price, good performance so far, useful accessories. If it lasts longer than 3 months it will have outperformed my Audio Technica ATR-55 in every respect :-)

Note: If you buy a mic (or anything else, I think) after clicking through from the link above I get some $, apparently, through an affiliate program. Sounds like a sweet deal to me :-)

EDIT: 26th April - Here are links to 2 podcasts recorded with the mic and an Olympus voice recorder:

Ripples over on everydayfiction.com

The Spectre Bride - on my podbean account

Twitpic test

2010-04-07T09:27:00.000+12:00

Just checking how well blogger and twitpic play together :-)

Rainbows and PJs

2010-03-27T20:11:00.000+13:00

Storm the school!

2010-03-19T14:15:00.003+13:00

I had a li'l buddy at school today. I rescued him from the gutter a week ago.

He helped me take the roll..

He helped me with my tea at morning break...

He even took a look at some marking for me.

He's in a better place now.

I hope he gets to stay there a while :-)

Something new!

2010-03-10T17:08:00.000+13:00

What's this? Something new in the house?

Hmmm, it's soft and comfy up here.

I'm pretty sure there's something I'm supposed to do with this thing...

Aha! Trampoline!

Dom loooooves his new bed! Thanks granny :-)

The Event - fixing typos

2010-03-10T06:33:00.002+13:00

I'm going to be uploading a corrected version of The Event to lulu this weekend. I've spotted a handful of typos to fix. People are still downloading the pdf occasionally, so I think it's worth taking the time to make the corrections.

If you've spotted any typos (especially in the second half of the book) let me know and I shall rectify them forthwith!

1 panel comics

2010-03-09T19:29:00.002+13:00

Are being posted to the following locations, about one a week:

http://twitpic.com/photos/mattcowens

http://mattcowens.livejournal.com/tag/1%20panel%20comic

Like, y'know?

2010-03-08T15:06:00.001+13:00

Film review (oral) by Y12 student today -

"then he got in trouble, and like, y'know, whatever, like, y'know?"

Srsly.

Toddling around sports day

2010-02-23T14:44:00.002+13:00

Dom spent a half hour this morning running around the school and investigating Athletics Day. It got the Dom seal of approval :-)

He also exhibited his most posey model behaviour ever, giggling and posing for the camera. It was very cute and since it was in the middle of a very large field I didn't have to worry about him running off and getting into trouble before I put the camera away!

Like lung tissue under a microscope...

2010-02-18T08:28:00.001+13:00

was a simile a Science teacher used to describe how pretty the red clouds at dawn were on her morning walk earlier this week.

Time mismanagement

2010-02-16T14:34:00.002+13:00

Students sitting a test at the start of the year = opportunity to draw.

Wish I could have spent the hour getting started on the marking, but I'd already finished the previous class set of essays they wrote so had no marking to do. Well, I had 3 essays that were handed in late. Still, I got some 1 panel comic stuff drawn, which was fun. I just have to make time to scan the drawings in, add a bit of colour, borders, captions etc.

I should get that done by the end of term :-)

A little behind the times

2010-02-15T22:53:00.002+13:00

So, apparently Debbie and I are something like 30 episodes out-of-date in Heroes. I think the last episode we watched was season 3, episode 13. I didn't know season 4 had started but evidently it's up to episode 19 already, and we still haven't seen the second half of season 3.

The first season was awesome, the second season disappointing, and the first half of season 3 was an infuriating mix of compelling and stupid. Still, having had a year's break from the show I'm actually very keen to watch it.

The season 3 dvds come out later this month, so we should be able to get them from the video store. By the time we plough through those season 4 will be finished and we can decide whether the carnie action is worth our time :-)

Still snap happy

2010-02-14T20:47:00.001+13:00

Doodling

2010-02-11T13:49:00.003+13:00

We had whole-staff PD this morning for an hour. I ended up drawing for most of the time. The lecture was reasonably interesting and I made the effort to go say hi to the presenter at the end and reassure him that I had in fact been listening - I just like to draw when I'm listening :-)

I thought it was a good idea to let him know I was listening as I'd been sitting near the front and had my head down most of the time. My body language could have read as fairly uninterested, though that wasn't the case!

Work is harder than not-work

2010-02-04T18:33:00.006+13:00

Today was tough. The actual teaching parts were fine but the lunchtime duty was double length (due to a non-standard Thrusday timetable) and was officially VERY HOT. Like Tyra Banks on a photoshoot the sun in summer is fierce.

Fortunately I was rescued by Debbie and Dom who picked me up in an air-conditioned family car and whisked me away to a land full of cold coke, chocoloate, trampolining, delicious smoked-chicken pasta dinner and ice cream. A lovely way to recover from a Thursday :-)

Tonight a story I wrote last year is being published on Every Day Fiction. It's the same site that published Debbie's story The Death Meter in January :-)

EDIT: Linky! http://www.everydayfiction.com/dead-weight-by-matt-cowens/

They also now have a podcast of Debbie's story, and on the first of March they'll post up another story I recorded (Mr Sterne by Michael Tracy). I will no doubt record Dead Weight (my story) some time soon also. It's quite fun recording flash stories (under 1,000 words)!

One panel comics

2010-01-31T12:02:00.006+13:00

I am going to be drawing a few one panel comics in the next few weeks. It's a fun way to pass the time and has a high drawing-for-product ratio compared to narrative comics :-)

Here's the first one. The caption is by Simon Petrie (punktortoise on LJ), a kiwi living in Oz:

And I'm going to cross-post this to my LJ later in the day, so apologies to anyone who gets it twice :-)

Choose only one!

2010-01-29T13:08:00.000+13:00

Which of the following pictures best represents my 'style' of drawing? I want to send a pic to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine as a sample of my style, in case an editor wants me to do some interior art for them. They only allow you to submit one pic!

Panorama of Civic Square

2010-01-16T21:47:00.000+13:00

I think I might play with stitching together panorama shots in the coming months. Seems like a fun idea :-)

Wellington day out

2010-01-16T12:04:00.000+13:00

This week Debbie and I took advantage of the combination of good weather and Dom having an early nap to take a trip down to Wellington. We visited the library, Civic Square, the Civic Gallery, the waterfront and Te Papa. In about 90 minutes :-)

The exhibition at the gallery was awesome - especially the yellow room with black dots!

Merry Birthmas!

2010-01-13T13:24:00.000+13:00

Dom's very fond of his birthday/Christmas present from his Grandma and Grandad! He insists on trampoline time at least five times a day :-)

Through a plastic bag dimly

2010-01-09T17:45:00.001+13:00

Further to Debbie's post, here are 2 examples of camera-in-plastic-bag photos. The camera survived well, and you can see how much fun Dom was having :-)

I am beginning to see the point of waterproof casings for cameras...

Learning about podcasting

2010-01-09T13:39:00.009+13:00

Hmmm, lots of options to try out. Like this little podbean player:

Solomon's Pearls audio, 4.17mb, approx 17:22

You can download the mp3 file from my podbean page - http://mattcowens.podbean.com/

Or the mp3 download link is this - Solomon's Pearls, which seems to take you to the download page on Podbean quite smoothly?

Or the Internet Archive, which wouldn't let me create an account then wouldn't load up at all after that...

Dominic is two!

2010-01-02T13:22:00.000+13:00

This is slightly late, but I finally remembered to take the size comparison photo of Dominic aged two years and three weeks. That monster toy keeps getting smaller!

Fiction online

2010-01-01T11:33:00.003+13:00

My story Solomon's Pearls is now available from Bluewood Publishing for $1.29, and I have plans to record an audio version some time soon, which will be free. Probably.

Debbie's story The Death Meter will be up on EveryDay Fiction on the 4th of January.

I've had a short story titled Waste Not accepted by AntipodeanSF for their March issue.

It's all rather exciting :-)

Flying Fox!

2009-12-31T11:13:00.003+13:00

There was a flying fox a short walk from my brother's house, where we were staying. How cool is that?

The first few times we gave Dom a shorter ride, running along holding him like so:

Then we finally were inspired to bravery by my sister and her 2 year-old, and I went on with Dom. He loved it.

I did too. I was a little scared the first time - in fact I find a lot of kids' playgrounds intimidating in one way or another - but as soon as I was off the platform it was all kinds of fun!

Botanical Gardens

2009-12-30T11:12:00.000+13:00

This is one of a set of new busts on plinths outside the Arts Centre in Christchurch. Mostly blokes, it does include Margaret Mahy (complete with skull and crossbones earings) and a couple of other women. Dom's favourite was this dude with glasses, which were great for grabbing.

Inside the Bot Gs, swinging Dominic up into the air.

This sculpture in a fountain was awesome! Pull the handle and water squirts out from two different places, making parts of the sculpture rotate. Dom loved it.

He also likes the smell of roses, though he had little time to stop on his tour of the gardens :-)

Returned from holiday!

2009-12-30T10:02:00.003+13:00

We are back in Kapiti after a fantastic trip south to Christchurch. We had an action packed 6 days with family and despite eating ridiculous quantities of sugary treats, delicious Chinese food, BBQ and pizza I am less than 2kgs heavier than when we left :-) That will take two weeks of hard work to shift but, all things considered, it could have been much worse! Running around parks, playing on the flying fox and going for lots of walks certainly seems to have helped.

Central Wellington from a plane. Dom didn't like the delay we had on the tarmac waiting for baggage to be loaded onto the plane. He was perfectly happy for the first 15 minutes of sitting in the plane not moving, but it started to get a little old after that. Once we took off he found the experience quite exciting :-)

Christchurch Botanical Gardens has a cool fountain, with sinister-looking water-squirting fish.

Next to the fountain was the much more exciting feature of a mother duck and 4 or 5 ducklings.

They were very calm and tame, quite happy to mooch about swimming or looking for food as we walked past.

Lots more photos to come!

Scheduled post - Matt Predicts

2009-12-28T10:51:00.000+13:00

It is Christmas Eve as I write this, but I'm setting it to publish on the 28th. Thus, predictions:

- The Xmas bbq was delicious, but there was too much food. I ate until my tummy hurt. It was worth it.

- 3 boys whose total age is under 9 can make a lot of noise, and a lot of mess.

- It's lovely to see family and catch up.

- I have taken in excess of 1,000 photos already in the last 5 days.

- I got sunburnt. On the back of my neck.

- In China a giant, irradiated moth attacked a nuclear power station, trying to suck out its irradiated goodness. The moth was defeated by the combined forces of a giant lizard and a robot. On-the-spot witnesses are now trying to compile a narrative structure from cell-phone footage, to be released in cinemas next month.

Matador blog

2009-12-26T10:49:00.000+13:00

I have started up a blog for Matador Games - on the off chance anyone wants to contact us and offer us huge sums of money for the designs for Dig, Mob and Cow :-)

It's here: http://matadorcardgames.blogspot.com/

Merry Chirstmas

2009-12-24T10:45:00.003+13:00

To one and all. And Merry Chistrmas, Merry Cihrstasm and My Racer's Mirths, March Misers Try, March Retry Miss and Charms Tyre Rims.

Debbie and I are looking forward to spending time with family and not being responsible for much of anything except our own (and Dom's) happiness :-)

Li'l lake

2009-12-16T11:20:00.003+13:00

Moar amnimals!

2009-12-15T17:34:00.000+13:00

Zoo photos!

2009-12-15T16:17:00.000+13:00

The highly photogenic otters

Sun bear out in the sun

The log was getting a good gnawing

One of Dom's favourite animals - a very friendly wooden hippo!

Holiday fun

2009-12-15T15:26:00.000+13:00

Zoo = visited
256 photos = taken

Update soon :-)