Seems it's the season for trans-Tasman rivalry. The netballers are doing it. The rugby players are too. Even the cricketers are at least showing up to the games against Australia. And next week it's Roller Derby's turn.
The capital city's Richter City will be hosting New Zealand’s first ever international interleague bout (Saturday 19 March at the TSB Bank Arena, tickets here). The game is going to be against the Australian Eastern Region champions (whatever that means), the Sydney City Assassins. But the RCRD All Stars are (cough) the second best team in New Zealand, so it won't be a cakewalk for either team.
In fact we're predicting a barn burner.
If you were at the last bout then you know that the RCRD All Stars are looking forward to a big, fast, hard-hitting match-up. And beyond the game you'll be able to see the brand new uniforms (some of which were sported at the end-of-year prize giving).
I have a double pass to give away to the bout. Email me and I'll pick a winner randomly.
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My interview with Amanda Palmer and Peter Sunde from Webstock is up on Public Address Radio.
I was pretty nervous about the interview. I had met both of them the night before, but even still this was Amanda Fucking Palmer and The Pirate Captain. The interview was just supposed to be with Amanda but she asked "Is it cool if Peter joins us?" "Yes, that is very cool!" I frantically began altering my very Amanda-centric questions.
As we walked to the room I remarked about how friendly the pair had become after meeting only a day or so earlier. Peter laughed and said that they had figured out they were married in their past lives. "Amanda was my husband".
After the interview I asked Amanda if she'd actually like to do a big "Rammstein-esque" show. "Yes, but only if someone else would play for it". Though she did say that that the Dresden Dolls were invited to open for Rammstein once, they turned it down when they thought about how the fans might react.
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Webstock was the usual amazing web and “life-affirmation” conference that it always is. I joke that they put it on each year just for me: they bring some of the best speakers in the world into my home town and all of my friends show up and we all have a great time. I even got to catch up briefly with a couple of the US team we competed against in Full Code Press.
One of them was typeface genius Jason Santa Maria (straight outa Brooklyn). There was an interview with him too but due to a big glitch in the voice recorder application on my phone (which means I am about to find out how to get a refund from an app purchase) all the audio is trapped inside my phone with no means of escape (any WP7 devs out there able to help? Because I would lvoe to be able to share it).
I also got to meet a hero of mine, Scott McCloud, a cartoonist and writer of some amazing books which are all about art and art appreciation. I had also met him the night before though I didn’t recognise him until he got up to speak: “Wait, Scott from last night was SCOTT MCCLOUD!!?” But when I spoke to him later, he laughed it off. He said how his iconic image looks nothing like him now, despite his attempts to age it. He said his image was now a bit “Mickey Mouse”, he meant too iconic to change, I explained what that phrase meant here.
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And as always I now have a long list of people that I want to hear and read more about and my life seems to have a bit more direction.