Sunday, November 4, 2007

Q&A As per indifference’s comment on my last post, I thought I’d open my blog up to questions. Ask anything, don’t be shy! I think it’d be interesting to see what people ask. This is, of course, because I have little to talk about these days. There are two things that come to mind this time though. This last weekend I had a training session to attend in the city (for a second job I do currently, which involves a major cultural centre in Melbourne – that’s about as specific as I’ll get ~_^). Since I was going into the city anyway, I offered to take my sister in to visit a few places. She is pretty interested in local history and architecture and she doesn’t have much experience in the city (at least in anything other than a nightclub). So we went to a few places: Melbourne Central, the State Library of Victoria, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Old Treasury. It reminded me again how much I love Melbourne. It was due to my love of the city that I began working in a second job within the arts community and I’ve been enjoying it greatly. I think my love of Melbourne is further amplified by the fact that I lived in Brisbane for a year; when I returned home, I realised how much I had taken for granted. I was living in “the world’s most liveable city” and I took much of it for granted. These days I’ve taken it upon myself to really learn a lot more about my home city, especially its history. And it really is a fascinating history, especially for a relatively young Australian capital. It’s also interesting how, despite being one of the younger capital cities here (having been founded in the 1830’s I think), it is the centre of so much of Australia’s culture. And of any major Australian city I’ve seen, Melbourne seems to most effectively walk the balance between historical and cutting-edge, especially when it comes to architecture. If you aren’t familiar with Melbourne at all, there’s really only one city I could compare it to – architecturally (at least in terms of historical buildings), I’d say that Melbourne is most like Paris. In fact, one of the major streets contains an area known as “the Paris end of Collins Street”. Melbourne differs from Paris primarily in the sense that it has far more “new” buildings. And it no longer carries building height restrictions (which limited the construction of large towers and such during the early 20th century). These days Melbourne’s skyline is punctuated with elegant skyscrapers. This love of Melbourne – as well as the work I am now doing – has led me to one conclusion: I would like to work for the city in a broader capacity. I was thinking about this over the weekend. It made me realise that a job I’d really love – a career goal I’d actually be interested to work towards – is some sort of job working directly for the City of Melbourne. I think one day I’d like to run for Lord Mayor. It seems a little crazy in the sense that it’d be totally different from what I’m doing now, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised how incredible that job would be. I think it would be the most significant position you could have if you love the city as much as I do. Of course, such a thing would be some way off – there are a whole host of reasons why it just wouldn’t make sense to run for anything like that now. For one thing I’d probably have to become a Counsellor first (and to do that I’d have to live within inner metropolitan Melbourne, which I currently don’t). Still, it’s a nice thought and it somehow feels like a good goal, as unexpected as it may be at the moment. Next time I may post some pictures of Melbourne, with the hope of expressing some of the reasons why I’m such a fan. In the meantime, I shall answer some questions (and again I encourage you to ask me something to answer in my next post!) snow fox: I think you have been a pretty major part of the community, actually. You did create our mascot after all. And that mascot will play a central role in the new version of the site. At least, that’s my plan for it; I can not guarantee that this plan will not change at some point. I don’t mind public speaking; I got used to it when I was studying graphic design and having to constantly present projects to multiple classes. These days I am used to speaking in front of groups of managers, although in many cases it’s via a teleconference and not in person. Still, it does make me nervous at the best of times. I try not to think about those things too much beforehand, otherwise I risk getting that sickly/anxious feeling. >_>; Minako: Well, Minako, I’m happy to be your OB friend. Are you interested in RPGs? I think you’d make a great contribution to creative writing on OB, if that’s your thing. I did take your advice for this post (as well as indifference’s). I don’t know how interesting it is; in truth I’m not much of a journal/diary keeper. In the past I would write primarily about network issues but these days my involvement outside OB is very limited. So I have to reinvent myself! Shin: All the recent talk of sickness/cramps/aches/etc does make me feel old… although I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. The other day my sister and I were telling my youngest sister how dumb most of the girls in her generation are, lol. She was saying something about being pregnant versus having an STD…and I forget how it went, but it was ridiculous. So we basically told her that her whole generation is a disappointment. At that moment we looked at each other and realised that this conversation sparked the beginning of a long and awkward downturn that continues well after retirement. Hal: Yes, this is why I love comments. People’s ideas and opinions often make me think of different things and sometimes that gives me some inspiration. I am lucky to have people who still visit month after month and comment! I think it is pretty amazing, especially when I rarely say anything interesting, lol. Korey: I thought I’d use your real name this time, since you sign your comments with it. Is that okay? ^_^” I agree with you that OB needs a major overhaul. The biggest barrier we have with that is, surprisingly, not related to my own time constraints. The biggest issue is the lack of a dedicated programmer to build what we need, especially someone who has a very strong knowledge of Virtual Bulletin. I do not possess the necessary knowledge myself. Programming is like math; it’s just one thing I’m no good at. This is especially true when it comes to dealing with the complexity of OtakuBoards as a piece of software. All I can really do is continue to improve/change the things that are in my control (forum related stuff and content) and continue to do some visual updates on the existing templates. I do have a design for the new site ready and in fact, we have a half-completed version of OB Evolution’s main page. Right now it is sitting there doing nothing. It desperately needs a good programmer to work with it for a few weeks. I am happy to pay a programmer, but even with that said, it’s been very hard to find people. So if you know anyone who might be interested, please spread the word! There are some aspects of Nintendojo that I quite like and it would do very well under new ownership. Maybe you’re right. Adam’s posts are often interesting, which is more than I can say for my own. One difference, however, is that I make a point to respond to each comment as often as possible. I tend to prefer this than focusing too much on the main post. Hope you have a good week! I have a day off tomorrow due to the Melbourne Cup. Woo! ~_^ molletta: Hm, you know, very few things would make me irrationally angry. There are things that bother or annoy me though. Do you think I should rant more often? I haven’t done a post like that in ages. I’m not as in tune with American politics as I once was – at least in the specific current candidates – but I am very interested in the system and I have an interest in politics in general (especially Australian politics). Hm, well, watch this space. ~_^ SunfallE: I’m glad you appreciate my responding to comments – I hope it makes commenting more worthwhile! I must check out your myOtaku page and see what your current topic is about. I should try to take some time to comment on other people’s pages, especially since everyone has always been so diligent to comment on mine! I think that there are always a million things we can do with OtakuBoards that don’t involve a massive site upgrade (and that’s coming from someone who really wants a massive site upgrade). At its heart the site will always be about the members and the content they make, so no matter how the design is or how the features are…that’ll always be the bottom line. Speaking of which, it’s coming close to Christmas again. I should start thinking about running another Christmas-related competition on OB. Mimmi-chan: Ahh yes, puppy photos! I should definitely post more of those. And yes, I should talk about anime (in my extremely limited experience, heheh). It might be a good idea to take recommendations from people, hm… Darren: The one you’ll be part of? Hm, now this may seem very rude of me, but I don’t remember reading that you were in a band or anything. I’m assuming I’ve either forgotten this detail or I’ve somehow skipped it – sorry about that. What type of group are you in? I’m always interested to talk to people who are involved in bands and music groups. A few friends of mine from high school created a band in their senior year and afterwards they were touring around a few states. That was the last I heard of them unfortunately. I wonder what became of their band. Aaryanna: Yeah I will definitely have to take more. I have a really funny one that was taken at night recently. Amira was having a nap on my bed and I walked into the room and saw her lying on her back – her paws were sort of propped up in the air above her…it looked so funny. I think she was dreaming about chasing an especially annoying magpie (one of many local birds that seems to have become one of her mortal enemies). I’ve also got a photo of her sleeping in a large pot outside. For some reason she likes jumping onto this empty pot (it’s only got soil in it, no plant). She curls up in the pot and falls asleep, or she just lays there and watches the world go by. Either that or she’s pretending to be a plant in the hopes that the magie will come a little too close. I don’t pretend to understand her weird logic; sometimes she does very unexplainable things. indifference: Two years is still a long time to spend in an online community I think. As you can see I took your suggestion to take questions for my next post. I did that once before ages ago and I got some very dodgy questions, haha. So we’ll see what happens. ~_^

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