Well, this was the last week that Nik was in Christchurch. I didn’t actually see as much of him during the evenings as I had been, since he finally started to go catch up with all the other people that wanted to see him when he was in town as well. As usual though, the three of us (Nik, Ian and I) spent a whole lot of time together gaming, talking and just generally hanging out doing stuff, which has been great. ^^ I also took Nik over to my grandparents for dinner this week, which was moderately hilarious as we all ended up sitting around doing sudoku and kakuro. The visit semi-culminated in the three of us heading out to Lonestar for a farewell dinner. My brother happened to also be having dinner there that night and made a few stops at our table.

On the gaming front I discovered that my new laptop doesn’t have a 256 colours mode, which means that I can no longer play StarCraft, or Total Annihilation, which have been staples of our gaming endeavours so far. I opened my Heroes Collection box this week as well to uncover all of the delights within. I immediately wore the t-shirt (awesome) and tried not to drool on the art-book. After this I installed Heroes V on my laptop and then proceeded to have a game with all present (Dace, Ian, Nik and I). I discovered that Nik is, in fact, all talk when it comes to playing Heroes V, despite owning a copy of the game. As I understand it, he’ll be playing a lot more of it now that he’s back in Aussie. ^^ Since my brother was the only one that had really played the game, not a whole lot happened. Still, good fun. ^^

On Tuesday I went into the Japanese Consulate in order to sort out the remainder of my application materials, which included taking in my passport. I had shaved and dressed nicely and gotten some new passport-sized pictures taken as a part of the application. When I arrived they informed me that my passport was looking a little ratty along the edge and very likely wouldn’t be accepted by Japanese immigration and that if I wanted to have them put my Japanese visa in it, they weren’t going to accept any responsibility for my being denied entry to the country when I got to Narita. I then went to the Department of Internal Affairs, they agreed with the assessment of my passport and gave me the paperwork to get a new one. So, back to Dad’s I go and fill out all the forms, then in to Maureen at the Consulate again, as she was willing to act as my witness. Unfortunately she didn’t know her passport number so I ended up having to abandon that plan. I quickly got a hold of Rach and met up with her at her flat, where she filled out all the necessary bits and pieces (thanks, Rach!). After briefly seeing Cam at the flat as well, I motored off to the post office. Given the processing time on passports, there was just not enough time for regular processing, which meant time to courier it up to Wellington with express processing… there goes $300. Yeesh. I’m thinking it’s a conspiracy to get me to convert to the new kinds of passports with the chips in them. What do you think?

Another rather amusing turn of events happened on Friday after and during the Lone Star dinner. During the dinner I received a phone call from Robbie up in Auckland, however before we could get to much specific talking, my phone died. I later received text messages (when I got back to Dad’s and plugged my phone in) from a friend of Robbie’s that was in town and was told to look me up. No problem, I think. I call Robbie and get the details (this was what he was calling about before) and I then start to try to arrange to go and meet Beth. This turns out to be problematic for a couple of reasons – I mishear the address (which didn’t have a number, just a description of the house) and my phone still has zip battery. I ended up on the wrong street in the wrong part of town, knocking on all the doors of the red houses I could find and asking if Beth was there. Yeah. Well, after trial and tribulation I manage to pick her up and save her from the doldrums of her relations for a few hours, where we sat and chatted and got to know each other a little. Very cool chick with a bright head on her shoulders, I think. I hope that she decides to keep in touch with me once she’s back up in Auckland, which is as of tomorrow I believe.

Other than that this week, I had my usual golf practice on Monday and then lesson and coffee with my grandparents on Wednesday morning. I got to learn a bit more about Office 2007, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I saw some of my friends for various things, I checked on flights for travelling up to Wellington and Hamilton (which didn’t pan out in the end because of the passport saga above) and I helped Dace go get his new roadbike yesterday, which is a pretty slick machine – he’s quite into it now, with all the little tools, bits and pieces to go along with it. Naturally this means that it’s not until right before I leave that I’ll be getting my bike back – I don’t begrudge Dace the use of it, particularly since his was stolen, but it has certainly changed how I thought I’d be operating while I was here! Actually after getting the bike the day ended up being pizza around at Dad’s and then just chilling out and having people stay and chat for ages, with people floating in and out for the day, that was really cool.
Today was Easter Sunday… an event that I always need to be reminded of each year because I never remember on my own. I’m not Christian, so Easter doesn’t really hold any significance for me in that regard. Nor am I a huge chocolate eater, so the inundation of chocolate that everyone seems to look forward to doesn’t really do anything for me, either. Anyway, after out playing some golf with my grandparents I went around to their place to pick up some eggs to take around to dinner at Mum’s (only to discover later that my grandparents were in attendance anyway… go figure), then played LeithTaxi for a little while for my friends at the park who I met up with. After that it was dinner at Mum’s, where we had a good dinner and generally a good time. After that Dace came back with me to Dad’s and we sat around playing Heroes V for ages, since we hadn’t really had as much chance to game together this week as we’ve been trying to. Great fun!