sammi needham : cogitate

The most bizarre flying experience I’ve ever had. Virgin flight 899 from Sydney to Melbourne tonight was running late. Like about 30 minutes late. I wasn’t too concerned as all I needed to do was get to Sydney. If I was half an hour late it just meant that I would get half an hour less drinking and partying in surrey hills tonight. Little did I know about the dreaded Sydney Airport Curfew Act.

We were informed of the curfew while waiting at gate lounge 10 and instructed that if we behave nicely, and do as we were told, we just might make it. We were consequently lined up in order of our seat numbers to expedite the boarding process (which i thought was pretty smart, really), the attendants making sure that we had the best chance of making it on the plane and in the air in time. It was all very funny for most of us as this sort of efficiency should perhaps be standard if it is going to make sure that planes leave on time. Only a few intoxicated passengers made a fuss as we quietly waited in our lines for the doors to open on the arriving flight.

As those passengers started waddling in without a care of a hurry, from the look of the attendants I knew something was up. The last of them limped through the doors and they shut with the force of bank vault. Then came the inevitable announcement. “Please listen carefully passengers” (we could hardly be called passengers yet) I have some very important and bad news.

So the flight was cancelled. A few individuals had some pretty unfortunate stories regarding this situation but on the most part we were all pretty well behaved. We were ushered down the long, sorry walk back to the check in counter where we were allocated seats on a 7:15 flight the next day, given credits for this cancelled flight and put up at the hilton across the walkway.

It’s a shame that they would not honour cab charges back home and then back in for those of us that live in Melbourne, but overall I think that they handelled this situation to the best of their ability and even though some of the staff got a bit high and mighty at a few of the angrier patrons’ quips, they were just trying to do their jobs.

I’m totally shattered as I was planning on reuniting with a bunch of people that will probably not be in the same room again for a very long time but what can you do? It was a hopeless and empty feeling.

I rocked up at the Hilton and avoided the line of angry patrons all trying to check in to their complimentary rooms at the same time, i’ll be arsed if i am going to stand in *another* queue on account of this flight.  I headed to the bar to watch some football and drown myself in some G&Ts for I’m sure that i’m about to check into the cheapest room at the Hilton and spend a disappointing night alone, all dressed up and no where to go. That being said, it can’t be stated that they didn’t try, or at least look like they were trying. All I know is that I won’t be booking the last flight from Melbourne to Sydney ever again.

Update: So i got to my room, and ironically it was overlooking the half busted VirginBlue logo outside Melbourne Airport Check-in.  Just to rub it in. And the hallway of Level 9 smelled of human feces!

I’ve been playing this Terminator Salvation International Twitter “Game” since i first heard about it, which was just after launch, i believe. I use the term game quite loosely as really it’s just about sending messages to everyone that follows you on twitter when you’re told to by the elusive @resistance2018.

@resistance2018 has ended up with 2963 followers. So that’s officially almost 3000 people ‘playing’ this thing, which is ok for a pretty obscure concept, but sounds a lot less impressive when it’s supposed to be targeted at an international audience. I’m really not sure how i would have found out about it had i not been in a social media-connected industry and read the press about it’s launch. Perhaps it’s also linked off the main Terminator Salvation site somewhere.

This was my favourite points update. It almost made me want to stop right here.

It’s goal was to turn players into mini marketing machines, as the only way t earn points was to tweet or retweet something at given times which sends messages to everyone that is following you, naturally. If you don’t tweet much this makes you look pretty obsessed by the Terminator franchise. If you’re following it closely you’re tweeting a few times a day about john connor, or the resistance, or the machines or death row, which sometimes did come across as quite morbid. But i suppose it achieved it’s goal as i don’t have too many followers (around 100) but i reckon i must have posted about 80 messages relating to this game during the course of it. Better than a kickinthenuts, 80*100 = 8000 messages to people about Terminator Salvation. Take out the spammers that follow me, that’s maybe 4000 messages to people that i know / know of This makes the total touch points of the 2963 playing the game into a much more impressive number of people exposed.

The instructions for this game went like this…

1. Follow Terminator Salvation on Twitter (@resistance2018)
2. Log In on 2018blog.com
3. Watch for tweets from @resistance2018
4. Send answers via @replies with hash tags to @resistance2018 or RT through the blog
5. You will receive a direct messages in Twitter with point updates

and the details of how to actually do it…

Tweets will utilize abbreviations to identify message types. Resistance Assignments will begin with RA: followed by the specific message type abbreviation, as in:

• RA:WM
• RA:TR
• RA:PT

Next, an action command and the question, as in:

• RA:WM Decode “OHJN”
• RA:TR “What is the last name of the leader of the Resistance?”
• RA:PT Complete “_O_N _O_NN_R”

You will likewise be required to reply with a set format:

• @Resistance2018 JOHN #RA:WM
• @Resistance2018 CONNOR #RA:TR
• @Resistance2018 JOHN CONNOR #RA:PT

Sounds pretty straightforward, and it was. What it wasn’t is fun, which i generally prefer games to be.  But i was hooked, and when i received bonus points for being one of the first to reply, i was chuffed.

Cracking the 1000, joining the sub squadron

The other part of the game was losing points. Occasionally you would be ‘harvested’ which means that you automatically lose a percentage of your points. There was seemingly no reasoning for the timing of this, and no way to stop it, awesome.  It happened now and then to me, maybe 6 times during the course of the game, generally on the weekend. Odd, annoying, but it shook things up a bit when someone high on the leader board got harvested as you would climb the ladder for doing nothing. It could have been a bit better to be able to do something to avoid it though. I’m sure people would have gone to great lengths in marketing this film to their friends to avoid harvesting. Maybe if you got a tattoo on your forehead you could avoid being harvested?

I ended up scoring 1210 points, which has left me in the ’submarine squadron’. Quite fitting as i’ve been at work all night for the last few weeks watching this game progress while working on a site for submarines. The idea of squadrons was a good one as it really did give you a focus and motivation to get to the next level. Mind you it would have been nice to receive something via email for reaching a new rank. A making of docco from the film, a coupon code for the previous films on blu-ray, unreleased shots from the production or something? Surely that wouldn’t have been too hard.

John Connor is very lonely in his squadron

At the end of the day I thought it was ok. As as a concept it is quite interesting and innovative, it’s potentially the first of it’s kind, although there are a few other Twitter “games” around, none of them are very compelling (neither is this one). Twitter wasn’t really designed as a gaming platform though, and the word ‘game’ is really just a cute way to disguise the fact that you might give away some prizes worth very little to a bunch of people that will use word-of-mouth to talk about your blockbuster film for a while.

So now i suppose i wait to see if there was anything to it apart from being part of the marketing machine. I cant find references to prizes for finishing it / scoring highly. I’d think that it being an ‘international’ game target to an international audience that getting in the top 30 might award me something, but i’m not really holding my breath.

A few final notes…

• It was all pretty simple, but also very repetitive, i think i must have tweeted the term “john connor” about 6 times during the course of the game.

• The word scrambles doubled and tripled up, which made them much easier to decipher the second and third time. Dumb. Surely there are 100s of words unique to that franchise.

• no one actually made it to the top squadron, which required 1500 points.

• I did learn a few things about the film though and now feel like i understand the characters roles a lot better. Mind you, i’m assuming that it’s a bit of a mindless action movie that really isn’t going to be too profound or hard to follow.

• It ended very abruptly

• I’m really glad it’s over. But to be honest, i was friggen hooked, and i still don’t know why.

Awesome, but why?

I’ve just returned from the premiere of my mate Jonathan Auf Der Heide’s film Van Diemen’s Land. It was a fun filled 3 days in Adelaide, of which the Adelaide part was much less fun that the actual film premiere celebration. Well done to all involved, it was a bit of a nerve-racking night (well, only by association for me, really) but a really great move about a past that Australia has yet to really explore properly on film.

Van Diemen’s Land
In 1822. Maquarie Harbour, a remote prison camp guarded by miles of impenetrable wilderness, was feared by convicts banished there as a fate worse than death.

Sentenced to slave labour, a work party of eight Irish, English and Scottish thieves attempt the impossible in an infamous bid for freedom.

Totally unprepared for the arduous journey ahead, their escape into the harsh Tasmanian wilderness becomes a futile battle between man and nature.

As supplies dwindle and tensions amongst the group escalate, they soon contemplate the unthinkable.