Vivid Sydney Lighting Festival

The cold is slowly drifting over Sydney, days are shorter and nights ever-longer as we make our slow trudge through the heart of winter. I don’t approve of the darkness setting in just before I get home at 5:30pm. I bet it does the same thing for everyone, you feel like you’re not getting your entire dollars worth when the sun is already starting to set around 4. Thankfully this does give Sydneysiders something else to enjoy and due the celestial electricity energy savings we have more time to enjoy it too. Hello Vivid Sydney.

The concept is simple, setup some very interesting and high-definition projectors be it laser or digital and project it onto iconic buildings around say Circular Quay, where you can get a full audience and excellent view no matter which side of the quay you happen to be on. Each year the themes change and you can’t really say what to expect. You have music videos, cool graphics, graffiti, laser shows the sky is the limit.

Justin and I went to see what is what in the city of lights, excuse the quality of the images, tripod or not we don’t profess to be experts.

Customs House:

Opera House:

Harbour Bridge:

Circular Quay:

If you want to find out more about the event check out the official homepage: http://www.vividsydney.com/

GTAV – Another game for the mantle

Shaun: Not exactly my department but certain games catch my eye and none more so than the GTA series. Ever since they moved from that top down lunacy to an (almost) fully realised 3D world they set the standard for story telling and immersion. Jump ahead 7 years and GTA 4 floored me with it’s jaw dropping detail and what was initially an annoying driving mechanic which I got used to and now get as “weighted handling”. Virtually all parts of GTAIV was standout, the feel, the grit, the sounds and some spectacular voice acting turned what could have been humdrum, yeah that was kinda fun to “wow, just wow”. You don’t easily forget the experiences as you wade in and get yourself soaked into the life of the protagonist which is all too sad when the story ends because there isn’t that much to do in the amazing looking world when you’re done. OK OK, you can only put so much into a game and when you have that much detail maybe you can’t run for mayor in Liberty City. I always dreamed of a MMORPG kind of GTA experience, loads of people and a finely balanced world where GTA stuff happens all the time… you know what, that is just terrifying.

I do know one thing though, I still play GTAIV and I can’t wait to check out what the guys at Rockstar have for us now in GTAV, from the outset things look good, the engine doesn’t appear that much better so i am going to assume more has been done about interactivity, and that is a good thing.

Gratuitous poster from the release:

Cars and bikes… Oh yes.

Shaun: I don’t like cars I LOVE cars and bikes too. It’s all about the feeling of motion, the wind in your hair or the sound of the engine turning those fossilized dinosaurs into small explosions for my aural pleasure, what is there not to like. I am all about wheels an engine and a handlebar or steering wheel. Currently I am working as an account manager at Dimension Data, so by day it’s the guy on the other end of the phone or visiting you about your “relationship” with our team, by night I talk/live/sleep/eat cars and bikes.

Recently I took a night drive and randomly started a conversation with a bunch of like minded car dudes at a petrol station, awesome talk. I didn’t know people just did that, go off and drive for a bit, chat random, good night.

Really can’t wait to get stuck in so see you soon.

Some of my favourite websites if you’re feeling the need for *ahem* fast:

http://www.bikeexif.com/
http://www.stanceworks.com/
http://www.speedhunters.com/

Coming up on KOKSTARS

Shaun: I’ve just had a chat with Justin and we should be staring down the barrel of a game review this week for the long term run of Borderlands 2. If you don’t know what that is well we have Cars and Travel for you, if you do know what that is well all i can say is games for gamers and a review by a gamer (so possible profanity, lots of internet meme tie-ins and a review of some sort in the background). Prepare to be 1337 h4x0r3d or something.

Kokstars… In the beginning

Shaun: Hi and welcome to the first post on our shiny new blog. What we aim to do is bring the ideas and lives of 3 siblings in 2 completely separate parts of the world with 1 vision to the world via our brand “Kokstars”. We’ll be blogging on Travel, Cars and Games as well as all sorts of stuff in between for your reading and viewing pleasure. Expect pictures some videos and the occasional stack of words to compliment them nicely.

Eventually there will be a brand with merchandise and I can’t wait to get my hands filthy in that stuff. Oh yeah I am the car guy so here’s a bit of shameless self whoring… and what a lovely day it was.

If you are reading this you are witnessing the first step, stay tuned, we have loads more to share with you.