At the moment, we are waiting at Auckland airport. At the moment, I’m resuming a post I began whilst waiting at Auckland airport. We were in Auckland for a few days, staying with my family. It rained. Constantly. In between torrential downpours, we managed to visit a few New Zealand landmarks, drive a rental car on the other (i.e. left) side of the road on Waiheke Island and meet with the great team from Netconcepts:
A brief list of funny “Overheard” moments:
“Oh no!” – Mystery Guest
“What is it?” – Jane
“There’s a little red line that goes all the way around the world!” – Mystery Guest, on the plane, upon seeing how far we have to fly to get from San Francisco to Sydney.
“What would I need to get a date with this woman?” – Monte Huebsch, during Landing Page Basics
“A prayer!” – Audience
“I twittered all night long. I twittered a bit too hard. I’m twittering love for you.” – Danny Sullivan
“I never want to think of Danny Sullivan in that way. To me, he’s like a Ken doll below the waist.” – Mystery Guest
“Is that a tie or did a monkey die on your shirt?” – Rand, abusing the “text in a question” feature during Q&A for Viral Marketing and Linkbait
“I want to see the Ciarán/ Liza Minelli monster.” – Me
“I lost it.” – Mystery Guest
“Techcrunch sounds like a cereal robots eat.” – Ciarán Norris
“Gee, good thing I looked at the itinerary. I’m moderating all day and I didn’t know it!”
“My entire life has been spent getting into and out of trouble. I’m never doing anything but.”
“That’s not like you, mate.”
– all Michael Motherwell
During the Essentials of Social Media Marketing panel:
Rand: “There were all these Heath Ledger movies on the Qantas flight over to Sydney as a sort of memorial.”
Danny: “Did you watch any of them? I loved A Knight’s Tale.”
Rand: “Really? I heard that was crap. It looked like crap. I liked the gay cowboy movie. I even got a little teary-eyed.”
Danny: “Knight’s Tale has swords and rock music.”
“Shut up you… you Brit!” – Ani Babaian, unable to think of a good insult.
“You’ve been to a farm?” – Customs guy in New Zealand
“No.” – Me, not realising I’d indicated that I had done just that on my customs form.
“It says here that you did.” – Customs guy
“Well, no. But I guess the whole of Australia is one big farm.” – Me
“In you go.” – Customs guy
Photography student Matt Hawke, outside Luna Park: “You two are dressed perfectly for the photography project I’m doing. Would you mind walking down those steps by the North Sydney pool for me?”
Me (in my head): “So long as it’s not for the Ugly People Wearing Stupid Clothes project.”
New definitions: “To Monte”: to do something inappropriate. “To Jacqui“: to punch the person who did the inappropriate something.
“Wikitoria? Is that like a Victoria that everyone can edit?” – Rand, displaying unintentional cultural insensitivity and profound geekiness in Auckland
“I knew you guys were almost here because Danny twittered your entire taxi ride.” – Ciarán (although Danny spelled my Twitter name incorrectly 🙂 )
“This office space is incredible.” – Rand, in Parnell, Auckland
“Yeah, but the commute would be a bitch.” – Mystery Guest
“Oh, shit.” – Me, upon seeing sixteen cyclists ahead of me on Waiheke Island as I struggle to drive on the left again.
“You passed levels one and two so they’ve upped the difficulty.” – Mystery Guest, comparing my driving to a video game.
“Ooh blogs! I have some blogs. I have RSS feeds.” – My aunt, having a serious talk with Rand about blogging
“Yeah, but the one she’s most proud of is about her cat.” – My cousin
“The weather in Seattle is… well, I’d stay here.” – Pilot of Alaska flight 513 from Los Angeles
As Rand (and a good number of other people) wrote, SMX Sydney was fantastic. A big congratulations are due to Barry Smyth, Lisa Davis and the rest of their team. They did a super job in putting together not just a good SMX, but a unique conference that future shows will have to work hard to live up to.
Let me leave you with one final piece of cheesiness: don’t tell me this doesn’t belong on iStockPhoto 🙂
