O Auckland my Auckland! Our fearful trip is done,

John Banks has weathered every rack, the prize he sought is won,

The port is (not) near, the bells I hear, the people all revolting,

While follow eyes the steady dollar, the World Cup grim and boring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck public transport lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Vodafone is making it even easier for people to connect to the internet – wherever they are – with the launch of revamped mobile data pricing and a smart backend that reformats webpages for easy viewing on a mobile screen.

Now, for up to just $1 a day on the days you use it, casual users of the mobile internet can browse the world wide web easily and inexpensively… without committing to a fixed monthly data contract.

The new $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data.

And how do we know this is actually true? Because we’ve got a new Nokia 6121. And even more excitingly, we’ve got one to give away, so you can have a chance to find out for yourself too. Find out how after the jump.

We want to know how you would use your Nokia 6121 in Auckland. Post your answer in the comments section.

Your story could be as simple as:
“I want to be able to use Vodafone’s mobile internet to cheat when I’m doing the pub quiz up at Shadows”

or it could be wildly creative (and we encourage this!) like:

“As I was drinking at the King’s Arms one rainy Sunday, I noticed that my favourite musician was standing at the bar. Thanks to the gossip I read on the Aucklandista I knew he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, and I was hoping he was up for some consolation shagging. But how to get his attention? I’d tried talking to him before at the Rising Sun but he’d ignored me. Hmmm. A flash of inspiration hit me, and I pulled out my phone and quickly downloaded his latest single and set it as my ring tone. Desperate, I know, but his jeans were so tight I needed some way to get into them. A quick text to my friend had her call me when I was standing right next to him. I pretended to blush, as he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. A couple of Epic beers later, and we were on our way to his musty Grey Lynn basement for ‘band practice’…”

The judges will pick five of the best stories and draw the winner at random from those entries.

Here are the rules of the competition.

1. Your answer must include the name of the phone company, and some aspect of Auckland that makes it the awesome city that it is.
2. You must live in Auckland and have a Auckland postal address for us to send the phone to if you win. (Psst, check out the Wellingtonista if you’re not from around here)
3. The members of the Aucklandista and their partners (PAGS) are not eligible to enter, although we encourage them to tell us a story anyway.
4. You have from now until noon Wednesday August 27 to post your entry.
5. The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

95BFM’s ace film guy Fabian Fanboy recommends Zombie movies [REC] and George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, documentaries Bigger, Stronger, Faster (roids), Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane that Crashed on the Mountains (Rugby players eating their mates), and The King of Kong (video game nerd-off). Fabian also recommends time travel thriller Timecrimes, the original The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Red Balloon – you know, that movie. With the Balloon.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg of course, be sure to check the full programme, which is blocking open just about ever shop door in town (bonus – it should be much easier to navigate than the website). Sick shit fans should check out the Ant Timpson-curated Incredibly Strange Film Festival, his sordid little festival within the festival.

BarCamps are an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. They are intense events with discussions, demos and interaction from participants. Basically the attendees ARE the conference.

On the day everyone arrives and registers. Shortly afterwards the topics for the day go up on a board and are split into streams where available. If you have something to talk about – you put your topic on a piece of paper and people interested gather in your space at the alloted time.

There is morning tea and lunch catered. There’ll be Wifi, Twitter screens and other tech/web goodness. Each Barcamper, who meets the t-shirt deadline (just under couple of months away yet) will get a free t-shirt that is designed to be re-worn. And finally, there’ll be software give-aways.

Barcampers from all over NZ (some from Wellington, even as far as Christchurch) who are flying up for the event so don’t think just because you aren’t in Auckland you can’t attend!

Sign up now!

The theme for this event will be Hardware Geekery and I’d like to invite you all to bring along a gadget or geeky piece of hardware that you think other people would get a kick out of. If you think it’s cool, other people probably will as well. We can show each other our cool gadgets and perhaps let people have a play with them.

There will also be a couple of speakers, just getting final confirmation sorted but it looks to be talks on OpenSource Media Centres and redesigning gaming consoles. In addition we’ll have another quiz – maybe just 2 or 3 rounds this time – hopefully with prizes if I can cajole a local company into parting with some goodies – if not then I’m sure we’ll find something fun for the winners to take home with them again.

As usual food and drink are included in the ticket price.

Tickets are available from the website: www.girlgeekdinners.co.nz and I will need to limit them to 50 because of the venue size, so first come, first served and no door sales.

More details will be posted on the website as and when I confirm them, such as menu, speakers etc…

To help with the quiz, perhaps everyone could send in one or two questions that they think should be included, that way everyone will know the answer to at least one or two questions.

They are also looking for items for the goody bags and/or sponsorship for this event which is $250. In return for sponsorship your logo is displayed on the website and, if sponsored in time, on the posters advertising the event.  If you are keen to help out then head to the website and get in touch with the organizers via the sponsorship page. 

• 09 The motorway is jampacked today because of a crash. Go a different way.
• 09 There’s someone giving out ice creams in Aotea Square
• 09 There’s an awesome gig on tonight at the King’s Arms
• 09 OMG Joss Whedon is at Burger King Queen Street right now.

Etc. Please feel free to ask any questions and we hope you enjoy the bot.