This is somewhat of a sad post. I just learned that an old friend who I went to primary and high school back in Australia died in an motorcycle accident last night. Although I didn't keep in contact with Rob much since I started Univerisity, there are things that come to mind when his name is mentioned:
- Him not allowing me to play on the play equipment with the other people in my class back in early primary school. I don't know why he did that, but I remember standing up to him one day and saying something like "I will play with my other friends because I want to!" We got along fine after that.
- His brother Brian elbowed Steve in the stomach during a (was it 300m?) lap around the oval on sports day in primary school. I was asked if this ever occurred and I said "no". I could have said "I didn't see it" or I could have actually stood up for Steve but I didn't. I'm pretty sure I did see it happen, and told Steven I saw it happen, but I said the opposite anyway. What character I had back then!
- His ability to get on Damo's nerves in highschool. Rob knew exactly how to pi$$ him off. Awesome.
- Him playing in our hockey team in the early days. Yes, that fantastic 1987 grand final picture of me with the big head. I'm pretty damn sure Rob was there.
- Him working at the winery.
- His 21st birthday party. I recall watching a Marilyn Manson concert or something like that there.
- The fact that he rode a motorbike.
- And last, but most certainly not least, his obsession with video games. I remember Chad and I went to visit him at his place but pretty much the whole time he was playing the Playstation 2 while we were talking to him. He loved his video games.
- Did I mention he liked video games?
This is the one thing bites the most about being all the way over here. Whatever happens to someone back home I feel so completely displaced. I would love to be back in Australia right now and just be with my friends to chat about Rob.
RIP mate.
08 September 2005
Chicago
I've been looking forward to this afternoon for a while now, for it is this afternoon that I fly off to Chicago to visit "Choza" and "da Boss". I've got a list of places I want to see and a lot of things I want to do. Hopefully I can forget about the backlog of work I have to do at the moment. There is so much stuff I have to get done it's incredible. Ahh well, such is life.
06 September 2005
The return
This is the first post from my new apartment in the US. My flatmate and I just got the wireless network up and running and everything seems to be working a-ok.
From the gap in the blog postings you may have thought that I had run out of steam. Not so. I've just come back from a long weekend of partying in Key West, frolicking with alligators and having an awesome sing-a-long/play-a-long session at a friend's birthday party. Prior to that I very busy with work and trying to tie up loose ends over here in the US. To those of you I have promised things or have e-mails to reply to - you know who you are - you'll be hearing from me in the near future.
From the gap in the blog postings you may have thought that I had run out of steam. Not so. I've just come back from a long weekend of partying in Key West, frolicking with alligators and having an awesome sing-a-long/play-a-long session at a friend's birthday party. Prior to that I very busy with work and trying to tie up loose ends over here in the US. To those of you I have promised things or have e-mails to reply to - you know who you are - you'll be hearing from me in the near future.
29 August 2005
Monday
I honestly could not think of anything more appropriate than the above title. Honestly.
Yes, Ft Lauderdale and surrounding areas got hit by hurricane Katrina last week, which meant we got Thursday and Friday off of work! Of course, that didn't really mean you could do anything... it was too dangerous to go outside not only because of what might be lying around, but because a lot of traffic lights were out and that's just scary.
Katrina grew up and is now going to turn New Orleans into the next Atlantis or something. I hope they hold out alright because that place is awesome.
Car. Stupid car. I still haven't got my car. I have insurance for the car, but no car. There is a hold up in getting the leasing company for the previous owner to get up off their arses and cash the damn cheque so I can receive the title to the car. That may take over another week yet!
Apart from that I am settling into my new apartment and finding the joy that is a couple of hundred TV channels. Actually, I really only like a couple of them, they being the independent film channel and comedy central. There are a couple of others that have the odd interesting thing on here and there. My flatmate knows the channels off by heart pretty much. Convenient yet scary.
Well, it seems this week I'm actually gaining some of my energy back. I've been utterly exhausted recently as has been shown by the lack of posting, but that's probably also in part due to the fact I have no internet connection at home yet.
Anyway this was just a quick post to prove that I am sort of still alive. And Goldberg, yes, at some point I will take a listen.
Yes, Ft Lauderdale and surrounding areas got hit by hurricane Katrina last week, which meant we got Thursday and Friday off of work! Of course, that didn't really mean you could do anything... it was too dangerous to go outside not only because of what might be lying around, but because a lot of traffic lights were out and that's just scary.
Katrina grew up and is now going to turn New Orleans into the next Atlantis or something. I hope they hold out alright because that place is awesome.
Car. Stupid car. I still haven't got my car. I have insurance for the car, but no car. There is a hold up in getting the leasing company for the previous owner to get up off their arses and cash the damn cheque so I can receive the title to the car. That may take over another week yet!
Apart from that I am settling into my new apartment and finding the joy that is a couple of hundred TV channels. Actually, I really only like a couple of them, they being the independent film channel and comedy central. There are a couple of others that have the odd interesting thing on here and there. My flatmate knows the channels off by heart pretty much. Convenient yet scary.
Well, it seems this week I'm actually gaining some of my energy back. I've been utterly exhausted recently as has been shown by the lack of posting, but that's probably also in part due to the fact I have no internet connection at home yet.
Anyway this was just a quick post to prove that I am sort of still alive. And Goldberg, yes, at some point I will take a listen.
24 August 2005
Here we go again
Righty, another storm looks like it's going to hit here. Whether it will be a hurricane by the time it makes landfall is another story, however from the brief visit to the Target store I just made I could plainly see that some people were in a state of hysteria again. It was all "hurricane this... hurricane that" at the cash registers and people were stockpiling big time.
Onto other interesting things, there was a discussion with my lunch group regarding gay marriage and whether it should be allowed or not. The discussion got very heated but I didn't really join in as I have not formed an opinion on the issue yet. I don't think I ever will actually as I don't really care about it. Some people in the discussion were against it because it would indicate to people that being a homosexual was normal, when in fact they argued it was not. Others argued against that saying that it's their right to get married if they want to. The counter arguement to that was that the only real rights we have are to food, shelter and safety or something like that. This went on for a while and it sort of got into a "think about the children" case.
And this is something I've noticed here in the states. People spend their time discussing stuff that really doesn't make a f^*ken difference to anything, or they argue how it will make a difference when the effects will probably be quite minor.
But there is a war going on overseas that will make a heck of a difference in the future if it hasn't already now (but of course it has). People are either sick of talking about it or they just give up realising there isn't much they could do about it anyway. Meanwhile of course the conservative right seem to be taking over this country, just to add to the woes. There are two real points for discussion: an unjust war and how you solve the problems caused by it, and the extreme Christian right who can't see two inches in front of themselves who are taking control of the country. In the end, who gives a flying f@#k about gay marriage.
Think about the children.
Onto other interesting things, there was a discussion with my lunch group regarding gay marriage and whether it should be allowed or not. The discussion got very heated but I didn't really join in as I have not formed an opinion on the issue yet. I don't think I ever will actually as I don't really care about it. Some people in the discussion were against it because it would indicate to people that being a homosexual was normal, when in fact they argued it was not. Others argued against that saying that it's their right to get married if they want to. The counter arguement to that was that the only real rights we have are to food, shelter and safety or something like that. This went on for a while and it sort of got into a "think about the children" case.
And this is something I've noticed here in the states. People spend their time discussing stuff that really doesn't make a f^*ken difference to anything, or they argue how it will make a difference when the effects will probably be quite minor.
But there is a war going on overseas that will make a heck of a difference in the future if it hasn't already now (but of course it has). People are either sick of talking about it or they just give up realising there isn't much they could do about it anyway. Meanwhile of course the conservative right seem to be taking over this country, just to add to the woes. There are two real points for discussion: an unjust war and how you solve the problems caused by it, and the extreme Christian right who can't see two inches in front of themselves who are taking control of the country. In the end, who gives a flying f@#k about gay marriage.
Think about the children.
19 August 2005
A tiring week
Right now I am completely and utterly exhausted. Hold on, I think I've written a post starting like that before. During the week I sealed the private purchase of my new car. I've sent the cheque off to the seller's financing company but I won't be actually picking up the car until next week. Once I get the existing title, but more importantly the insurance sorted out, then I can pick up the car.
And this is where stuff starts to bite. Because I have not been licensed in Florida for a year yet I will be paying through the nose for my insurance. Oh, the other factor is that insurance in Florida is crazy because people have too many accidents. From what I've seen lately: people reading books while they're driving; people driving with their sunshield reflector things still up; people driving and eating cereal; people constantly lane surfing; this doesn't surprise me at all. At the moment my insurance will cost me 8 times that of what it did in Australia. Freaking unbelieveable. I do have other things to try yet but I really have to have this sorted out by Tuesday next week.
In other news I've been preparing my move to a new apartment with a friend from work. This is going much better and the pricing is going to be much more reasonable, thank god. Luckily we're both experienced with living with other people so problems should be kept to a minimum.
And this is where stuff starts to bite. Because I have not been licensed in Florida for a year yet I will be paying through the nose for my insurance. Oh, the other factor is that insurance in Florida is crazy because people have too many accidents. From what I've seen lately: people reading books while they're driving; people driving with their sunshield reflector things still up; people driving and eating cereal; people constantly lane surfing; this doesn't surprise me at all. At the moment my insurance will cost me 8 times that of what it did in Australia. Freaking unbelieveable. I do have other things to try yet but I really have to have this sorted out by Tuesday next week.
In other news I've been preparing my move to a new apartment with a friend from work. This is going much better and the pricing is going to be much more reasonable, thank god. Luckily we're both experienced with living with other people so problems should be kept to a minimum.
15 August 2005
Attack of the drones
Today when I arrived at work I witnessed something quite amazing. What I saw could be best described as a sure-fire way of finding redundancy candidates.
At my work there are boom gates such that when an employee pulls up next to one, access into the facility is granted via waving an ID in front of the scanner to raise the boom gate. Sounds complex? No bloody way.
So what do you think would happen if there was no boom gate? What if the boom gate had been broken off by some fuel guzzling SUV earlier on in the morning? Do you think people would analyse the situation and not bother scanning their ID because it isn't fricken required? Some people would, BUT, statistical analysis showed over half the people wouldn't. If you want comedy that comes in the "I can't believe I'm seeing this" flava, all you have to do is watch this for 5 minutes to see that over half the people at your work are drones.
At my work there are boom gates such that when an employee pulls up next to one, access into the facility is granted via waving an ID in front of the scanner to raise the boom gate. Sounds complex? No bloody way.
So what do you think would happen if there was no boom gate? What if the boom gate had been broken off by some fuel guzzling SUV earlier on in the morning? Do you think people would analyse the situation and not bother scanning their ID because it isn't fricken required? Some people would, BUT, statistical analysis showed over half the people wouldn't. If you want comedy that comes in the "I can't believe I'm seeing this" flava, all you have to do is watch this for 5 minutes to see that over half the people at your work are drones.
13 August 2005
Insane
This week has been absolutely insane, hence, no updates. I think I pissed off a lot of car salesmen last weekend when I went looking for cars. That tired me out a lot. I think for most of the day I was saying "no, I'm not interested in buying!" They are extremely persistent buggers over here, much more so than what I experienced in Australia. Once they actually realise you're not going to buy they turn into incredibly rude people. Mind you, I was looking at used car dealerships where they're not really interested in forming a relationship with the customer so maybe that had something to do with it.
As if purchasing a car, cancelling stuff over in Australia and initiating stuff over here wasn't enough, work has been an absolute hassle. Put it this way: people have gone well past their limits, including myself, and we're all a bit in the "care factor zero and rapidly falling" zone at the moment. I am completely and utterly exhausted.
This may be causing me to have the weirdest dreams ever and sleep quite irregularly. Case in point: I had a dream that I was back in Pata (in country Australia where I grew up as a kid) and I was lying down in some shade next to the shed enjoying the breeze. I then heard something say "Master... Master" and I turned my head and saw a kitten that was talking to me. It then said "Feed me". As if that wasn't scary enough, I also had some birds later on in my dream asking the same damn thing. It's like the scary movies that have the scary children playing - good example is "the ring".
Luckily though I've got Pendulum's debut album "Hold your colour" to get me through. I had to download a torrent of the album because my CD won't be arriving for at least another month! That was an insane time to wait and so I've been listening to the album for the last week. Highly recommended even if you don't listen to drum and bass very often or don't really know what it's all about.
As if purchasing a car, cancelling stuff over in Australia and initiating stuff over here wasn't enough, work has been an absolute hassle. Put it this way: people have gone well past their limits, including myself, and we're all a bit in the "care factor zero and rapidly falling" zone at the moment. I am completely and utterly exhausted.
This may be causing me to have the weirdest dreams ever and sleep quite irregularly. Case in point: I had a dream that I was back in Pata (in country Australia where I grew up as a kid) and I was lying down in some shade next to the shed enjoying the breeze. I then heard something say "Master... Master" and I turned my head and saw a kitten that was talking to me. It then said "Feed me". As if that wasn't scary enough, I also had some birds later on in my dream asking the same damn thing. It's like the scary movies that have the scary children playing - good example is "the ring".
Luckily though I've got Pendulum's debut album "Hold your colour" to get me through. I had to download a torrent of the album because my CD won't be arriving for at least another month! That was an insane time to wait and so I've been listening to the album for the last week. Highly recommended even if you don't listen to drum and bass very often or don't really know what it's all about.
07 August 2005
Crazy lightning
Over the weekend there have been some massive thunderstorms here in South Florida. Today in fact there was a strike so close that it made my speakers squeal from all the interference. Here is one of the shots I was able to get. The lightning in this shot was striking ground somewhere behind the apartment. Still pretty damn close though.
05 August 2005
Err, pick another consulate
A little while back I had to book a Visa renewal interview at a consulate outside of the US. This interview was set for early September at the consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I actually would have liked to have found one in Canada because that's further away and I can visit Mexico pretty easily from where I live, but I couldn't even find free slots in Canada before the end of the year for some weird reason. It seems I'll be trying Canada again though.
I got curious today and decided to find out what was is goin' down in that part of Mexico. According to this article: "The United States will close its consulate for one week to assess the security of its employees and consulate visitors in this Mexican border town [Nuevo Laredo] after a shootout between drug gangs using machine guns, grenades and a rocket launcher."
Right... I think I'm going to change some plans :-)
I got curious today and decided to find out what was is goin' down in that part of Mexico. According to this article: "The United States will close its consulate for one week to assess the security of its employees and consulate visitors in this Mexican border town [Nuevo Laredo] after a shootout between drug gangs using machine guns, grenades and a rocket launcher."
Right... I think I'm going to change some plans :-)
04 August 2005
Car purchasing
I'm now getting pretty excited about the whole car purchasing thing, and I'm finding it quite fun to go about looking for cars. I felt I was restricting myself to the Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix thing too much because I really hadn't researched what else was out there.
So I went for a walk around in a caryard to see if I could find anything that I liked. What was the closest caryard? The one just outside. There are probably a couple of thousand cars in the parking lot and this gives me the perfect opportunity to go around and look for something that fits the above criteria. I found one that caught my eye: the Mazda Protege5. This is based upon the reliable Mazda Protege platform and from what I've been reading on the Internets is pretty good value for money and very reliable. I'm leaning towards a second hand version of whatever car I get because, believe it or not, I'm in money saving mode at the moment and I'm really tightening down the screws so I can afford to travel around.
Anyway this weekend I will be test driving the Mazda Protege5 plus anything else I notice. I think the only thing that will really be a thorn in my side will be car insurance, but with some advice I've received from friends I should be able combat that.
Ooh, and where am I going to be living? Not far from where I live now, which makes it about 10 minutes from work. This is good, because not only is it still close but it's also cheap and I can carpool to work. Thank god that was organised without too much hassle. Whatever the case, Aug 25th is approaching fast and I want to have this all sorted.
So I went for a walk around in a caryard to see if I could find anything that I liked. What was the closest caryard? The one just outside. There are probably a couple of thousand cars in the parking lot and this gives me the perfect opportunity to go around and look for something that fits the above criteria. I found one that caught my eye: the Mazda Protege5. This is based upon the reliable Mazda Protege platform and from what I've been reading on the Internets is pretty good value for money and very reliable. I'm leaning towards a second hand version of whatever car I get because, believe it or not, I'm in money saving mode at the moment and I'm really tightening down the screws so I can afford to travel around.
Anyway this weekend I will be test driving the Mazda Protege5 plus anything else I notice. I think the only thing that will really be a thorn in my side will be car insurance, but with some advice I've received from friends I should be able combat that.
Ooh, and where am I going to be living? Not far from where I live now, which makes it about 10 minutes from work. This is good, because not only is it still close but it's also cheap and I can carpool to work. Thank god that was organised without too much hassle. Whatever the case, Aug 25th is approaching fast and I want to have this all sorted.
03 August 2005
Percentage of valid voice mails
To my work number: 0%
Every damn phone call I get is not addressed to me. It's either to someone who no longer exists (1% of the calls) at my number, or some damn telemarketing company (99%). I get about two of these calls a day and always have some on voicemail when I get to work. I actually ended up putting my work number on the "do not call" list. Fingers crossed that works, although I'm not holding my breath...
Every damn phone call I get is not addressed to me. It's either to someone who no longer exists (1% of the calls) at my number, or some damn telemarketing company (99%). I get about two of these calls a day and always have some on voicemail when I get to work. I actually ended up putting my work number on the "do not call" list. Fingers crossed that works, although I'm not holding my breath...
31 July 2005
One year in the US of A
Today marks exactly one year of me living in the US, up from the original 3 months I was supposed to spend here. By the end of August I will have officially severed the ties with my job in Australia and will be paid in US dollars. This also brings to an end the fantastic benefits of being an expat: free car, free accommodation and a daily spending allowance. I have already made plans to stay with a friend either as a flatmate or until I find somewhere else to live. I haven't decided yet, but that decision can wait.
Car wise I have been looking around but I've decided to go for a Pontiac Vibe which is what I've been driving here for the past 8 months. I've found it to be reliable, have good handling and good fuel economy and it's not an eyesore. It can also take a bashing as we loaded one up and drove it all over California. It the same as a Toyota Matrix and so is based on the reliable Corolla platform. By far it's the best of the five different rental cars I've had whilst I've been over here. Now I've just got to find one *in black* (very important to have it in black) for a reasonable price before the end of August. Thank god for sites like Kelley Blue book.
Car wise I have been looking around but I've decided to go for a Pontiac Vibe which is what I've been driving here for the past 8 months. I've found it to be reliable, have good handling and good fuel economy and it's not an eyesore. It can also take a bashing as we loaded one up and drove it all over California. It the same as a Toyota Matrix and so is based on the reliable Corolla platform. By far it's the best of the five different rental cars I've had whilst I've been over here. Now I've just got to find one *in black* (very important to have it in black) for a reasonable price before the end of August. Thank god for sites like Kelley Blue book.
29 July 2005
Flickrgraph
I found this cool Flickr app that shows the social relationships between people at Flickr.
http://marumushi.com/apps/flickrgraph/
You just plug in the user name and off exploring you go. Mine is "daecks" (without quotes of course) and you'll see how much of a lamer I am with only 2 contacts (currently, of course!)
http://marumushi.com/apps/flickrgraph/
You just plug in the user name and off exploring you go. Mine is "daecks" (without quotes of course) and you'll see how much of a lamer I am with only 2 contacts (currently, of course!)
26 July 2005
How to nearly miss a shuttle launch viewing
1) Get up at 3:30 in the morning. Have a quick shower and then get the hell on the road because I've got to get to the Kennedy Space Center at 7am (3 hours is normally plenty of time. I've done this before. I'm a professional.)
2) Cruise north along the I-95. When going through West Palm Beach, get delayed for over 1/2 hour due to a traffic jam at ~5 in the morning!
3) Keep cruising. Know that last launch viewing attempt there wasn't very much of a line up with the route I took, so take it again.
4) Get in the line up of cars. Hit forehead several times as I realise every man and his dog is using the exact same route I chose, and that the line up is several miles long. At this point realise that I'm *not* really that professional and probably quite the amateur.
5) Move 3 miles in 2.5 hours.
6) Get past the Kennedy Space Center checkpoint. Arrive at Kennedy Space Center at 9:30am, 2.5 hours late.
7) Race through security and get on the VERY LAST BUS LEAVING FOR THE SHUTTLE VIEWING AREA.
8) Once on the bus find out that I got on with 15 seconds to spare.
9) Breathe a massive sigh of relief and get ready to watch some big firecrackers!
2) Cruise north along the I-95. When going through West Palm Beach, get delayed for over 1/2 hour due to a traffic jam at ~5 in the morning!
3) Keep cruising. Know that last launch viewing attempt there wasn't very much of a line up with the route I took, so take it again.
4) Get in the line up of cars. Hit forehead several times as I realise every man and his dog is using the exact same route I chose, and that the line up is several miles long. At this point realise that I'm *not* really that professional and probably quite the amateur.
5) Move 3 miles in 2.5 hours.
6) Get past the Kennedy Space Center checkpoint. Arrive at Kennedy Space Center at 9:30am, 2.5 hours late.
7) Race through security and get on the VERY LAST BUS LEAVING FOR THE SHUTTLE VIEWING AREA.
8) Once on the bus find out that I got on with 15 seconds to spare.
9) Breathe a massive sigh of relief and get ready to watch some big firecrackers!
Shuttle pics
Some of them have been uploaded to Flickr.
There aren't heaps of them as I got a bit experimental when taking the shots and I botched some of them up. Plus, I was shaking like crazy when I was trying to take the pictures. Eh, nuff excuses. The Flickr folder is here.
Liftoff!
Wow wow wow.
I saw the Discovery Shuttle launch just over 6 hours ago and my hands are still jumping around with excitement as I type this (or perhaps that's from the Jolly Rancher 'Screaming Sours' soft and chewy candy that I just ate). Whatever is causing this feeling, I know that what I saw today was just freaking amazing.
Cross another item off the "things I've always want to see and do" list. Pics coming later. I am f#%ken stoked.
I saw the Discovery Shuttle launch just over 6 hours ago and my hands are still jumping around with excitement as I type this (or perhaps that's from the Jolly Rancher 'Screaming Sours' soft and chewy candy that I just ate). Whatever is causing this feeling, I know that what I saw today was just freaking amazing.
Cross another item off the "things I've always want to see and do" list. Pics coming later. I am f#%ken stoked.
24 July 2005
What the?
I was sifting though the documentation for a new power supply I had been given at work when I came across a gem of a cartoon regarding lightning protection, which is oh so appropriate for Florida. Note this piece of equipment is made by a reputable company so I'm wondering why they have an offbeat cartoon like this. Not that it's a bad thing of course.
Yes, "Unprotected power/control lines and antenna installations can be hazardous to equipment and personnel" (and your butt).
Yes, "Unprotected power/control lines and antenna installations can be hazardous to equipment and personnel" (and your butt).
I need access to this when choosing movies
I'm a sucker for blurbs on movie rentals that I haven't really heard anything about. If something says "Fantastic! A wild ride" by even some anonymous John Doe sort of reviewer, I'm prone to being wooed in by the review snippet and I'll rent the movie. After I've watched some movies though using that method as a guideline however I tend to end up thinking "that reviewer must be on crack", but I don't end up changing my ways. There are two people who may be reading this blog (seriously people, get outside and get a breath of fresh air or something, it's much more beneficial) that I know of who are probably nodding their heads right now. Nav is one of them.
Enter Blurb Racket! This site takes the review snippets and puts them back into context. Now if I could access that site while choosing movies I would probably be a bit more careful in my movie choice. Or maybe I wouldn't. That Spanish flick had R all over it so perhaps I should just remember to *think*...
Pffft, yeah right!
Enter Blurb Racket! This site takes the review snippets and puts them back into context. Now if I could access that site while choosing movies I would probably be a bit more careful in my movie choice. Or maybe I wouldn't. That Spanish flick had R all over it so perhaps I should just remember to *think*...
Pffft, yeah right!
20 July 2005
Shopping at Bal Harbour
Update: Google maps has been updated again. Now you can see the Bal Harbour shops from above hybrid stylie
I had to get a new Amex card recently which required me to travel to the Amex travel centre at Bal Harbour shopping centre. I only got a quick glimpse of what this place was like at the time, but hell, the fact that I had to pay to park and that everyone looked like millionaires made me want to check this place out some more. I did that recently and holy crap, I've never seen stuff cost so much before.
I walked into one store that had a nice white polo shirt that in place of buttons had a zipper, and under the zipper there was a small colourful section. Hard to describe but it looked pretty cool. I walked in and felt like I was severely underdressed but started looking for one in my size. The shop attendant came to help me and we couldn't find one in my size, thank god, because the bloody shirt cost US$400. By that time I knew I was completely out of my league in this store, so I faked disappointment at the fact they didn't have the shirt size I wanted and quickly exited. I paused to catch my breath once out of the shop and out of sight of the shop attendant. Once I had regained my composure I soldiered on. This happened at a few other stores - I saw really cool stuff that was just way too expensive. However all was not lost. GF Ferre were having an up to 70% off sale on selected items. There was one shirt there that was just fricken awesome. I tried it on and I felt like a million bucks. I had to buy it. I did. It was actually a sort of reasonable price, but I think that was because I was used to seeing jeans and so forth upwards of $300.
Anyway, that was a brief overview of my shopping experience. There is so much cool stuff there that is so far out of my price range it makes me want to cry, but oh well. I'm sure I'll get over it.
Right, that's the first and last metrosexual post I make to this blog :-)
I had to get a new Amex card recently which required me to travel to the Amex travel centre at Bal Harbour shopping centre. I only got a quick glimpse of what this place was like at the time, but hell, the fact that I had to pay to park and that everyone looked like millionaires made me want to check this place out some more. I did that recently and holy crap, I've never seen stuff cost so much before.
I walked into one store that had a nice white polo shirt that in place of buttons had a zipper, and under the zipper there was a small colourful section. Hard to describe but it looked pretty cool. I walked in and felt like I was severely underdressed but started looking for one in my size. The shop attendant came to help me and we couldn't find one in my size, thank god, because the bloody shirt cost US$400. By that time I knew I was completely out of my league in this store, so I faked disappointment at the fact they didn't have the shirt size I wanted and quickly exited. I paused to catch my breath once out of the shop and out of sight of the shop attendant. Once I had regained my composure I soldiered on. This happened at a few other stores - I saw really cool stuff that was just way too expensive. However all was not lost. GF Ferre were having an up to 70% off sale on selected items. There was one shirt there that was just fricken awesome. I tried it on and I felt like a million bucks. I had to buy it. I did. It was actually a sort of reasonable price, but I think that was because I was used to seeing jeans and so forth upwards of $300.
Anyway, that was a brief overview of my shopping experience. There is so much cool stuff there that is so far out of my price range it makes me want to cry, but oh well. I'm sure I'll get over it.
Right, that's the first and last metrosexual post I make to this blog :-)
14 July 2005
Ultrafest 2005
You wouldn't believe it, but I finally got the movies from Ultrafest from my friend. You need Apple Quicktime to view these files. The files are of a Drum and Bass tent, Moby, Oakenfold (I think it was anyway) and a quick location shot. Click on this link to get to the files. If you don't feel like waiting to download them (who would?), you can log in using the username "iwannalook" and the password "letmein" (without the quotes). Someday I'll find a hosting site that's a bit more friendly. Someday.
Here are some crappy snaps of some of the more interesting groups of acts for the festival. I didn't get to see all of them as we arrived later in the day.
Here are some crappy snaps of some of the more interesting groups of acts for the festival. I didn't get to see all of them as we arrived later in the day.
Don't try this at home
For some reason, I had not eaten since last night when I had a red bull at 3pm today.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! THIS IS A BLOODY STUPID THING TO DO!
Although I was typing at a rate that seemed like 100 words per minute and thinking relatively clearly after consuming the Red Bull, at 5pm I can safely say I can no longer think straight nor can I even type. My mind is wandering off far from home base. I have all the symptoms of being drunk but I have not consumed any alcohol. This is fricken weird.
Yes, Red Bull gives you wings, but where the f?#k have I landed?
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! THIS IS A BLOODY STUPID THING TO DO!
Although I was typing at a rate that seemed like 100 words per minute and thinking relatively clearly after consuming the Red Bull, at 5pm I can safely say I can no longer think straight nor can I even type. My mind is wandering off far from home base. I have all the symptoms of being drunk but I have not consumed any alcohol. This is fricken weird.
Yes, Red Bull gives you wings, but where the f?#k have I landed?
13 July 2005
12 July 2005
I am fricken stoked
I did not expect this at all, but the launch viewing tickets arrived in the mail today. That's fricken awesome.
The last straw
After a long day sometimes one just wants to retire for the night and do absolutely nothing. Firstly though, one must find a car park. This was the only car park "vacant" near my apartment:
Seriously, who "parks" their mountain bike in a car park?
At any rate, I bought the perfect thing to take my mind off the real world on the weekend and take part in a virtual one. 100 big ones got me a Nintendo Gamecube, controller, memory card and 2 games (Metroid and Zelda). This should keep my mind off of trashing people's mountain bikes, for a little while at least.
Seriously, who "parks" their mountain bike in a car park?
At any rate, I bought the perfect thing to take my mind off the real world on the weekend and take part in a virtual one. 100 big ones got me a Nintendo Gamecube, controller, memory card and 2 games (Metroid and Zelda). This should keep my mind off of trashing people's mountain bikes, for a little while at least.
11 July 2005
Difficulties
I was really, really looking forward to seeing the shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Centre this Wednesday. I was going to tie an Australia flag around my shoulders and shout out
"Go Andy! Go you good thing go!"... and yeah, he'd hear that from 6 miles away. However as things go it seems I'll be observing the launch from somewhere else. Call it my stupid absent mindedness but the tickets I purchased way back when (beginning of April I think) were valid for that launch and the next rescheduled launch, if that happened. I know the launch has been rescheduled at least twice, but for some reason it never clicked with me I'd have to order more tickets. I think I just plain forgot at the time about the rescheduling terms.
Here is the part that bites. You don't get refunded for tickets. Period. It's sort of like paying $50 to go see a performer, the show gets cancelled, but they keep your money. I don't know what to think of this - there is a pain in my head where I think of how I just lost $100 for the satisfaction of... nothing. Yeah, this was all in their terms and conditions that tickets were not refundable and I bought the tickets *knowing* that but not really *thinking* about it. I feel like I've just given away money to some guy who claims he's selling Nikon D70s but is really based in Spain or somewhere else outside of the US and is trying to rip people off (I wonder if he did get any people's money...).
I don't really care about going to watch it offsite anymore because there are supposed to be other places to see the launch from. But you know, even an e-mail saying something like this would have been fantastic: "Your tickets for the original launch are now invalid. You can re-purchase tickets starting from such and such a date and time". Perhaps some tickets will just magically appear in the mail for me in the next day. Yeah - pigs, flying, stuff.
"Go Andy! Go you good thing go!"... and yeah, he'd hear that from 6 miles away. However as things go it seems I'll be observing the launch from somewhere else. Call it my stupid absent mindedness but the tickets I purchased way back when (beginning of April I think) were valid for that launch and the next rescheduled launch, if that happened. I know the launch has been rescheduled at least twice, but for some reason it never clicked with me I'd have to order more tickets. I think I just plain forgot at the time about the rescheduling terms.
Here is the part that bites. You don't get refunded for tickets. Period. It's sort of like paying $50 to go see a performer, the show gets cancelled, but they keep your money. I don't know what to think of this - there is a pain in my head where I think of how I just lost $100 for the satisfaction of... nothing. Yeah, this was all in their terms and conditions that tickets were not refundable and I bought the tickets *knowing* that but not really *thinking* about it. I feel like I've just given away money to some guy who claims he's selling Nikon D70s but is really based in Spain or somewhere else outside of the US and is trying to rip people off (I wonder if he did get any people's money...).
I don't really care about going to watch it offsite anymore because there are supposed to be other places to see the launch from. But you know, even an e-mail saying something like this would have been fantastic: "Your tickets for the original launch are now invalid. You can re-purchase tickets starting from such and such a date and time". Perhaps some tickets will just magically appear in the mail for me in the next day. Yeah - pigs, flying, stuff.
07 July 2005
Weird day
I don't know what other people were doing but I spent most of my day just watching the news regarding the terrorist attacks in London. I was extremely grateful to get e-mails from people who I knew were in the area, telling others that they were ok. So to those of you over in London, I hope you continue to remain safe.
It's times like these that Wikipedia (that free, online encyclopedia for those not in the know) really shines. They have an excellent summary of the situation as it stands, and I actually found myself wandering off to other parts of the wikipedia site to, for example, read about Pan Am Flight 103. I do this because I'm an information freak and I like to try to understand the reasons why people do things like this. Plus, the poet Sylvia Plath wrote some poetry about the macabre nature of humans and how we are in awe of tragedy. I guess I'm expressing that part of myself by monitoring the Internet.
In other news, it seems Florida is about to be bombarded with another hurricane. The season starts in June and ends in November, and we've already had a couple of tropical storms come through. Hurricane Dennis is poised to come past the west coast of Florida. This of course will also likely delay the lauch of the space shuttle Discovery on Wednesday which I am extremely keen on seeing. The space shuttle has delayed a lot of my visits to other cities in the US - I don't want to plan a trip and then find that the shuttle is going to launch the same time I was due to go on holiday. Oh yeah, my problems are just huge...
It's times like these that Wikipedia (that free, online encyclopedia for those not in the know) really shines. They have an excellent summary of the situation as it stands, and I actually found myself wandering off to other parts of the wikipedia site to, for example, read about Pan Am Flight 103. I do this because I'm an information freak and I like to try to understand the reasons why people do things like this. Plus, the poet Sylvia Plath wrote some poetry about the macabre nature of humans and how we are in awe of tragedy. I guess I'm expressing that part of myself by monitoring the Internet.
In other news, it seems Florida is about to be bombarded with another hurricane. The season starts in June and ends in November, and we've already had a couple of tropical storms come through. Hurricane Dennis is poised to come past the west coast of Florida. This of course will also likely delay the lauch of the space shuttle Discovery on Wednesday which I am extremely keen on seeing. The space shuttle has delayed a lot of my visits to other cities in the US - I don't want to plan a trip and then find that the shuttle is going to launch the same time I was due to go on holiday. Oh yeah, my problems are just huge...
04 July 2005
July 4 Fireworks
I have to quickly blog on what is probably the most impressive fireworks display I've ever seen (well, the year 2000 fireworks display in Sydney was pretty good too). It's not impressive because of the fireworks themselves, it's impressive because from my lucky vantage point everywhere I look I see fireworks. Suburban South Florida is putting on a heck of a free show.
02 July 2005
Independence day weekend
Is already off to a good start. I woke up this morning with a painful feeling in my mouth that indicated the slice of pizza I had at 3:30am this morning was indeed hot. I spent last night in Fort Lauderdale with some friends mostly attempting to dance to RnB. I succeeded for quite a few hours and then I just got sick of it.
What was most surprising about last night, for me anyway, was that Karma lounge is in fact not dead. I spoke to one of the people behind the bar and they said "yeah, that person who wrote the article got it wrong... we don't know where she got that information from. She was actually here last week...". So, there you go. I think they've actually turned down the volume by a few decibels too, but there still weren't many people there.
It's pretty cool how fireworks can be purchased at the local supermarket for July 4 activities. What I found really funny though were the names of the fireworks, like "Freedom fireworks" and "Desert strike". Ok, so they're even trying to put subliminal messages through fireworks these days. I was wondering if when the fireworks exploded they said "Mission Accomplished" (or as the Daily Show put it in an anagram, "C'mon, I lied. So scampish"). I'll get back to you on that one. Seriously though, there are fireworks going off in quite a few areas when I was looking over my balcony before. There is a pretty cool vibe around the place at the moment.
I've worn my "Florida... stay awhile" shirt that has the drawings of graves on an island a few times now. I've had quite a few compliments about it so far from people who I think thought that I was being patriotic or something like that, so I've had to point out to them what the graves on the island mean and then I explain that I'm moving over here, and that the shirt is me having a go at myself. Ummm, a lot of people don't get that.
Well, I'm off to watch some more backyard fireworks before deciding what to do tonight. Adios!
What was most surprising about last night, for me anyway, was that Karma lounge is in fact not dead. I spoke to one of the people behind the bar and they said "yeah, that person who wrote the article got it wrong... we don't know where she got that information from. She was actually here last week...". So, there you go. I think they've actually turned down the volume by a few decibels too, but there still weren't many people there.
It's pretty cool how fireworks can be purchased at the local supermarket for July 4 activities. What I found really funny though were the names of the fireworks, like "Freedom fireworks" and "Desert strike". Ok, so they're even trying to put subliminal messages through fireworks these days. I was wondering if when the fireworks exploded they said "Mission Accomplished" (or as the Daily Show put it in an anagram, "C'mon, I lied. So scampish"). I'll get back to you on that one. Seriously though, there are fireworks going off in quite a few areas when I was looking over my balcony before. There is a pretty cool vibe around the place at the moment.
I've worn my "Florida... stay awhile" shirt that has the drawings of graves on an island a few times now. I've had quite a few compliments about it so far from people who I think thought that I was being patriotic or something like that, so I've had to point out to them what the graves on the island mean and then I explain that I'm moving over here, and that the shirt is me having a go at myself. Ummm, a lot of people don't get that.
Well, I'm off to watch some more backyard fireworks before deciding what to do tonight. Adios!
A "what the heck is that person doing now"
I sometimes get curious and find out what people are doing today who I remember from my childhood. Can any of you remember the movie "The Wizard". I can remember loving this movie at the time because it had Super Mario Bros 3, a huge gaming screen, and a Nintendo Powerglove. Mind you, I haven't watched it since then... I didn't want to ruin the childhood memory of it being a great movie. Anyway, there was a girl in the movie, Jenny Lewis, who apart from the guy with the powerglove is one of the people who I remember most from the movie. I even forgot the movie had Fred Savage in it, but I only associate him with "The Wonder Years" and facial moles these days.
I digress. These days Jenny Lewis is actually the lead singer for a band called "Rilo Kiley". They're an indie rock band from California and after listening to some of the tunes on their website I thought they weren't too bad at all. I think their latest CD would be quite appropriate for cruising around on 2-lane American highways.
I digress. These days Jenny Lewis is actually the lead singer for a band called "Rilo Kiley". They're an indie rock band from California and after listening to some of the tunes on their website I thought they weren't too bad at all. I think their latest CD would be quite appropriate for cruising around on 2-lane American highways.
28 June 2005
Turtle power!
Allow me to introduce the hero in a half shell in my car today:
As I was turning into my apartment a guy was crossing the road with turtle in hand saying to me "dude, do you know where there are anysewers ponds around this area?" I did in fact, so I took the little charger under my wing and transported it to the closest one I knew of. As I was releasing him back into the "wild" I was able to take one final farewell shot:
I don't know why my arm was turning purple. Someone told me it may have to do with radioactive ooze in the area, although I was supposed to keep that a secret.
OMG this was the most non-funny lame-arse post ever. For real though, I did for about 5 minutes today have a turtle for a passenger. I hope your day was just as interesting.
-SplinterKristian
As I was turning into my apartment a guy was crossing the road with turtle in hand saying to me "dude, do you know where there are any
I don't know why my arm was turning purple. Someone told me it may have to do with radioactive ooze in the area, although I was supposed to keep that a secret.
OMG this was the most non-funny lame-arse post ever. For real though, I did for about 5 minutes today have a turtle for a passenger. I hope your day was just as interesting.
-
25 June 2005
Karma Lounge dead
I found out from this article that Karma lounge in Fort Lauderdale has shut down because I was thinking of going out to it last night. I haven't actually been there for a while but it was probably the coolest place to hang out at in Fort Lauderdale. It played pretty good music and on Wednesday nights even played Drum and Bass, which in Lauderdale made it stick out like a sore thumb. I've posted previously though that it couldn't work out what it wanted to be - with the volume the music played at you'd think you were supposed to be dancing, but there was nowhere to dance. So you had to stand around instead which led to talking, but you had to shout because the music was so loud. Good idea, a nice refreshing vibe which set it apart from the normal Ft Lauderdale commercial crap, but very poorly executed. I guess I'm not really surprised that it shut down.
24 June 2005
Bubble Tea
Recently the canteen at work has brought in sushi to the selection of foods available. This makes a nice change from the salads that I normally prepare from the salad bar and I now have another healthy eating option for lunch. Thankfully though all the sushi is made by an external company, as I'm sure those in similar corporate environments could attest, the food made in the corporate canteen isn't the best at times. I just wouldn't trust them with sushi.
I digress. I was munching away on the sushi which today was wrapped in tapioca. That got me thinking about something that I haven't had for a while - Bubble Tea! Ahh, delicious tea with the added texture of tapioca pearls. Now, you know my opinion of Ft Lauderdale foodstuff isn't the highest at the moment but I was thinking that somewhere should serve bubble tea given that there are like a million people living around the area. I actually found a search engine that specifically looks for Bubble Tea at www.bobafind.com. You know what? I had to broaden the search to include all of Florida to get any results. According to that search engine, there are 10 spots where you can buy bubble tea in all of Florida. Ten. I thought that was a bit low for 18 million people, so I looked towards Google local search. There is one place I could find in South Florida that serves bubble tea, and it's at a place called Lan Pan-Asian Cafe in Miami. I'm going to make a special trip there pretty soon - I have a craving that needs to be put to rest.
I digress. I was munching away on the sushi which today was wrapped in tapioca. That got me thinking about something that I haven't had for a while - Bubble Tea! Ahh, delicious tea with the added texture of tapioca pearls. Now, you know my opinion of Ft Lauderdale foodstuff isn't the highest at the moment but I was thinking that somewhere should serve bubble tea given that there are like a million people living around the area. I actually found a search engine that specifically looks for Bubble Tea at www.bobafind.com. You know what? I had to broaden the search to include all of Florida to get any results. According to that search engine, there are 10 spots where you can buy bubble tea in all of Florida. Ten. I thought that was a bit low for 18 million people, so I looked towards Google local search. There is one place I could find in South Florida that serves bubble tea, and it's at a place called Lan Pan-Asian Cafe in Miami. I'm going to make a special trip there pretty soon - I have a craving that needs to be put to rest.
23 June 2005
Conquer the code
Finally stuff seems to be working out, but only after a lot of effort and a few tears here and there (joking about the tears part). I have conquered part of the code and the damn radio seems to be doing what I'm telling it to do! Amazing, yes. God damn engineering is frustrating. I'm also amazed how much taking a step back from the work can be in getting it completed. Example, I was up till midnight trying to get this code working and then I gave up in frustration. I came back this morning and *bam* I instantly saw what was going wrong.
I think my accent is slightly changing, but into what I don't know. I listen to BBC the whole day pretty much, and then I probably watch the latest Dr Who or Top Gear episodes when I get home. That's a lot of Brit accent. Then I'm hearing American accents at work - what's a real crack up is when a guy with a Brooklyn accent gets fired up and starts swearing. It's hilarious! If I end up sounding like that when I cursed I wouldn't care too much.
I got news yesterday that my Visa renewal petition had been approved, so at some point in the near future I'm to take a trip to Canada and go snowboarding or something. Oops, I mean, get my Visa renewed at the consulate there.
I think my accent is slightly changing, but into what I don't know. I listen to BBC the whole day pretty much, and then I probably watch the latest Dr Who or Top Gear episodes when I get home. That's a lot of Brit accent. Then I'm hearing American accents at work - what's a real crack up is when a guy with a Brooklyn accent gets fired up and starts swearing. It's hilarious! If I end up sounding like that when I cursed I wouldn't care too much.
I got news yesterday that my Visa renewal petition had been approved, so at some point in the near future I'm to take a trip to Canada and go snowboarding or something. Oops, I mean, get my Visa renewed at the consulate there.
18 June 2005
Frenchie, please clean my shoes
So in my quest to find some good eatin' food in Ft Lauderdale (the past two times have been somewhat ordinary, IMHO) I went with some friends to a restaurant called "The French Quarter". Oh, quick disclaimer, I ain't going to review this place like Chi-Hoong could at his website. He knows quite a bit more about food than I do and can probably pronounce the food on the menu better than I could ever hope to. However even if I can't pronounce the damn food I at least know if it tastes good, because I eat a lot of food and have a good sample size to draw from.
Anyway, I digress. We went to this restaurant and I ended up ordering the Beef Wellington (I could pronounce that) with some wine. My mate got talked into ordering some more expensive wine but that didn't worry me in the slightest. At least he didn't go for top of the range on the wine list which was $15,000 a bottle (yes, you read that right).
My Beef Wellington was pretty good. I think the waiter originally screwed his nose up at me because I ordered it medium-well, rather than medium. Blasphemous, I know. The wine was so-so. I thought that a bottle of Saltram No.1 would beat it hands down but you can't win everything I guess. Anyway at the close of the dinner the hurt came out to be $210 between the three of us. French, expensive, but okayish I guess.
I was talking to a guy here at work about the French Quarter and he said the person who owns it is a millionaire who actually owns a few of the strip malls in downtown Ft Lauderdale. That's a lot of money, people. He said that the owner would most likely have been the one cleaning the floor. If I had known that I would have tried asking him to clean my shoes as well. I've never had a millionaire clean my shoes before. I would have tipped well.
Anyway, I digress. We went to this restaurant and I ended up ordering the Beef Wellington (I could pronounce that) with some wine. My mate got talked into ordering some more expensive wine but that didn't worry me in the slightest. At least he didn't go for top of the range on the wine list which was $15,000 a bottle (yes, you read that right).
My Beef Wellington was pretty good. I think the waiter originally screwed his nose up at me because I ordered it medium-well, rather than medium. Blasphemous, I know. The wine was so-so. I thought that a bottle of Saltram No.1 would beat it hands down but you can't win everything I guess. Anyway at the close of the dinner the hurt came out to be $210 between the three of us. French, expensive, but okayish I guess.
I was talking to a guy here at work about the French Quarter and he said the person who owns it is a millionaire who actually owns a few of the strip malls in downtown Ft Lauderdale. That's a lot of money, people. He said that the owner would most likely have been the one cleaning the floor. If I had known that I would have tried asking him to clean my shoes as well. I've never had a millionaire clean my shoes before. I would have tipped well.
14 June 2005
What to write about?
For those of you I'd call 'regulars' you may well have noticed that updates are not coming as often as they used to. I think I'm burned out from blogging. Well, not only that, I'm just burned out in general. 70 hours last week at work really took out any remaining energy I had. My energy levels have not been this low for quite a while. But maybe this is all just a short term thing that I'm going through because I'm so exhausted.
I did order, what I thought, were some pretty cool shirts the other day. They should be arriving before the end of the week. One of them has a drawing of an island at sunset and it has some little graves on it. The writing says "Florida... stay awhile". I was going to wear that one to work. The other is in the same style as the Nascar logo and says "B-O-R-I-N-G". If I ever go to watch a Nascar race then I reckon I'd wear that one. Hopefully the rednecks would see the funny side of it, because you know, I'm actually at the race so how can I think it is boring? Well, we've all seen Jerry Springer I'm sure, so maybe they wouldn't understand the humour, and maybe the last thing I'd see on this earth was a great bunch of toothless freaks wearing overalls bearing down on me with pitchforks. Was that too much of a cliche there?
I do like paying people out, just for a laugh of course, and I expect to get payed out in return. If I don't get payed out, or they don't see the funny side, then I assume there is a major lack of the humour gene and I'm guessing I won't find them too interesting to hang around with. However I think I may have overstepped it when I went to Crobar in South Beach Saturday night. A girl was visiting down from Chicago and a bunch of us went out partying. Well it seemed that one of the girls in the group didn't like the music, or was too tired, or something like that and she had her arms crossed whilst standing in the middle of the dancefloor. I saw this and immediately starting impersonating her. Then I thought "I'm dancing with my arms crossed... like Russians sort of do!" and so I started dancing like they "sort of" would. Admittedly, I was only going on what I remember from "Fiddler on the Roof". I don't think she appreciated it though because she called her friends to the toilets soon after that they left. I'd like to think it wasn't because of what I did, but perhaps it was.
Best thing I've heard today: "Don't work too hard... just get it done by tomorrow".
I did order, what I thought, were some pretty cool shirts the other day. They should be arriving before the end of the week. One of them has a drawing of an island at sunset and it has some little graves on it. The writing says "Florida... stay awhile". I was going to wear that one to work. The other is in the same style as the Nascar logo and says "B-O-R-I-N-G". If I ever go to watch a Nascar race then I reckon I'd wear that one. Hopefully the rednecks would see the funny side of it, because you know, I'm actually at the race so how can I think it is boring? Well, we've all seen Jerry Springer I'm sure, so maybe they wouldn't understand the humour, and maybe the last thing I'd see on this earth was a great bunch of toothless freaks wearing overalls bearing down on me with pitchforks. Was that too much of a cliche there?
I do like paying people out, just for a laugh of course, and I expect to get payed out in return. If I don't get payed out, or they don't see the funny side, then I assume there is a major lack of the humour gene and I'm guessing I won't find them too interesting to hang around with. However I think I may have overstepped it when I went to Crobar in South Beach Saturday night. A girl was visiting down from Chicago and a bunch of us went out partying. Well it seemed that one of the girls in the group didn't like the music, or was too tired, or something like that and she had her arms crossed whilst standing in the middle of the dancefloor. I saw this and immediately starting impersonating her. Then I thought "I'm dancing with my arms crossed... like Russians sort of do!" and so I started dancing like they "sort of" would. Admittedly, I was only going on what I remember from "Fiddler on the Roof". I don't think she appreciated it though because she called her friends to the toilets soon after that they left. I'd like to think it wasn't because of what I did, but perhaps it was.
Best thing I've heard today: "Don't work too hard... just get it done by tomorrow".
08 June 2005
New territory
Pfft, I really don't know what to write for this post. My mind is absolutely fried and I warn you I'll probably dribble on a bit. So far this week my shortest work day was 13 hours. I've been getting home just in time to watch the Daily Show and then I'll fall asleep until, say, 6 or 7 the next morning and then get up and get ready for work again because I'm worried that I'll get deported or something... well, not really. I just don't want to let the team down. But I was pretty chuffed that I got the private call functionality, which normally operates only on a trunking system, to operate in conventional mode too! Like anyone would know what that means! What I mean is, I HACKED code like I did in uni. Thing is, now that code has to be inspected by a group of people who know far more than I do and I reckon it will provide them with comedy for weeks and weeks to come.
So Saturday morning I was up early waiting outside the West Palm beach auditorium office thing-a-me-jig to get some Coldplay tickets. Ooh yeah, I can't wait until September now. The last time I saw them I was in Melbourne. That was an awesome show - sorta weird though coz I went to see them with my ex at the time and she'd only just given me the flick... but whatever.
So anyway I'm killing time now. I can't code any more today. I'm waiting for a colleague to finish an inspection with some guys in Penang so we can go play some foosball. I'm still really crap at it... but god damn, I will beat him someday!!!
*sigh* signing out. Time to listen to more Radio One. Actually feeling a little sick but I'll blame the Tim Tams for that. Now I'm trying to think of why I called this post "New territory". Whatever and ever amen.
So Saturday morning I was up early waiting outside the West Palm beach auditorium office thing-a-me-jig to get some Coldplay tickets. Ooh yeah, I can't wait until September now. The last time I saw them I was in Melbourne. That was an awesome show - sorta weird though coz I went to see them with my ex at the time and she'd only just given me the flick... but whatever.
So anyway I'm killing time now. I can't code any more today. I'm waiting for a colleague to finish an inspection with some guys in Penang so we can go play some foosball. I'm still really crap at it... but god damn, I will beat him someday!!!
*sigh* signing out. Time to listen to more Radio One. Actually feeling a little sick but I'll blame the Tim Tams for that. Now I'm trying to think of why I called this post "New territory". Whatever and ever amen.
06 June 2005
New Orleans pics
I've posted some of the pics from New Orleans up on flickr. You can check them out here.
At some point I'll post up what I got up to. Perhaps tonight.
At some point I'll post up what I got up to. Perhaps tonight.
02 June 2005
Ooh the Coldplay is good
I have been listening to BBC's Radio One today, like I do every other day when I'm at work now, and god damn the new Coldplay album sounds good. It's so good that I when I preordered the album on Amazon I got the fastest delivery method I could (in hindsight, I probably could have just gone to a CD store. It seems I'm so addicted to Amazon it's not funny). Tickets go on sale here this Friday and there is a growing group of people I'm going with. Hopefully we'll all be able to get tickets to the concert. That'd be just friggin' awesome, know what I mean?
There isn't a heck of a lot else going on at the moment. I'm probably comparing to Bourbon street in New Orleans though... I'm still trying to recover from the long weekend. Things that don't make this easy are getting the latest computer music magazine and finding some great tutorials on the various types of sound synthesis that exist (additive, subtractive, FM, granular, ooh, I'm going weak at the knees now) and then testing out some sounds on the computer till the wee hours of the morning. Some things I'm now stoked about are the fact that the right channel monitor for my home studio set up has mysteriously repaired itself. For a while there the treble wasn't working at all. Plus, the plugpack that I'd hacked into to get my Kawai digital piano to work over here went on strike a couple of weeks back, something to do with voltage shortages or whatever. A replacement arrived today that wasn't complaining about the voltage and other working conditions and I'm oh so happy about that. Stick that one up you, you power converter union you!
Right, anyway, I'm obviously suffering from bad coffee overdose with a combination of artifical sweetener overload and whatever is in the water over here.
There isn't a heck of a lot else going on at the moment. I'm probably comparing to Bourbon street in New Orleans though... I'm still trying to recover from the long weekend. Things that don't make this easy are getting the latest computer music magazine and finding some great tutorials on the various types of sound synthesis that exist (additive, subtractive, FM, granular, ooh, I'm going weak at the knees now) and then testing out some sounds on the computer till the wee hours of the morning. Some things I'm now stoked about are the fact that the right channel monitor for my home studio set up has mysteriously repaired itself. For a while there the treble wasn't working at all. Plus, the plugpack that I'd hacked into to get my Kawai digital piano to work over here went on strike a couple of weeks back, something to do with voltage shortages or whatever. A replacement arrived today that wasn't complaining about the voltage and other working conditions and I'm oh so happy about that. Stick that one up you, you power converter union you!
Right, anyway, I'm obviously suffering from bad coffee overdose with a combination of artifical sweetener overload and whatever is in the water over here.
31 May 2005
I'm back
You know, I thought my post last night regarding this actually made it into the blogger brain... but obviously not. Pity that, actually. It was full of wit and humour that would have left even the most discerning critic wondering why I spend my time monkeying about with code rather than writing jaw-dropping literature.
Illusionary world aside, yes I'm back from New Orleans, Nawlins, the Crescent City, Big Easy, whatever you feel like confusing people with. After driving 1850 miles this is a quick-arse summary of my thoughts of my extended long weekend of travel:
1) New Orleans is a pretty effing cool city.
2) New Orleans actually looks better during the day than at night. Contrast this with Miami, which is a pretty city at night but not too pretty during the day.
3) Florida actually has undulations in its terrain up around the panhandle.
4) Miles don't click over quickly enough.
5) Aquaplaning for about 20 metres during a big arse thunder storm on the way back is "interesting".
Illusionary world aside, yes I'm back from New Orleans, Nawlins, the Crescent City, Big Easy, whatever you feel like confusing people with. After driving 1850 miles this is a quick-arse summary of my thoughts of my extended long weekend of travel:
1) New Orleans is a pretty effing cool city.
2) New Orleans actually looks better during the day than at night. Contrast this with Miami, which is a pretty city at night but not too pretty during the day.
3) Florida actually has undulations in its terrain up around the panhandle.
4) Miles don't click over quickly enough.
5) Aquaplaning for about 20 metres during a big arse thunder storm on the way back is "interesting".
26 May 2005
New compilation album to get...
Just heard it on Annie Mac's Radio 1 session - Liquid V club sessions, for all good things DnB.
Dang, I gotta go. Got Santos Renuentes to see *yet again* tonight at Tobacco Road. I wish they'd play in like, New York or something like that. I need an excuse to fly up there*. Plus, tomoz I have to go to... New Orleans! Oh I'm bored already. hehe.
* WTF am I talking about, like I need an excuse???
Dang, I gotta go. Got Santos Renuentes to see *yet again* tonight at Tobacco Road. I wish they'd play in like, New York or something like that. I need an excuse to fly up there*. Plus, tomoz I have to go to... New Orleans! Oh I'm bored already. hehe.
* WTF am I talking about, like I need an excuse???
24 May 2005
Muvico
There is a huge movie complex not far from where I live called Muvico. Actually, there are a few of them around the place. This one has 24 cinemas - nothing to write home about when you come from a city that had a 31 cinema complex - but this place is all Egyptian themed and tries to be impressive in that respect. These cinemas weren't as good as the 31 cinema complex though. Maybe it was the crowd.
I've noticed a bit of a contrast to movie-goers here and over in Australia. Over here there are a few people who lack respect for anyone else watching a movie and don't recognise the fact that other people actually did pay to see the movie too. These people were constantly checking for messages on their mobile phones. I remember once I had a guy listening to his CD player at full volume sitting right next to me.
Point being, I went to see Star Wars episode 3. It was oooookay - but that was from going in with extremely low expectations. I guess those expectations were met. The wooden performances had me laughing in a couple of spots. I was thinking "does Lucas really expect me to buy into this?" Well, he got my money so I guess he really doesn't care. The movie experience was perfectly summed up though when during the silent parts I was able to hear some guy behind me snoring.
I've noticed a bit of a contrast to movie-goers here and over in Australia. Over here there are a few people who lack respect for anyone else watching a movie and don't recognise the fact that other people actually did pay to see the movie too. These people were constantly checking for messages on their mobile phones. I remember once I had a guy listening to his CD player at full volume sitting right next to me.
Point being, I went to see Star Wars episode 3. It was oooookay - but that was from going in with extremely low expectations. I guess those expectations were met. The wooden performances had me laughing in a couple of spots. I was thinking "does Lucas really expect me to buy into this?" Well, he got my money so I guess he really doesn't care. The movie experience was perfectly summed up though when during the silent parts I was able to hear some guy behind me snoring.
23 May 2005
It's done!
So, the future is going to be even more exciting. In the next couple of months I'll be going through the motions of buying a car, finding a flatmate, getting a fortnightly salary (compared to the monthly one I've gotten so used to) all American style. To be perfectly honest, I didn't make this move for the money. I won't be much better off here than I was in Australia, but the difference is I *won't* be in Australia. Mexico is only a couple of hours away by plane. Jamaica ain't that far either. South America - just a wee bit south. Problem is that due to my Visa extension I won't be going outside of the US for another few months until processing has been completed.
That doesn't matter though, there is enough going on over here to keep me busy. The French food and wine festival is on this coming long weekend in New Orleans and I've made plans with a couple of friends to go for a road trip. I haven't been a tourist for a while now so "I'm excited".
Adios muchachos.
That doesn't matter though, there is enough going on over here to keep me busy. The French food and wine festival is on this coming long weekend in New Orleans and I've made plans with a couple of friends to go for a road trip. I haven't been a tourist for a while now so "I'm excited".
Adios muchachos.
20 May 2005
Update on change
I've given myself the weekend to think about this and do some more figures. I should know myself better. Although I've been thinking about doing this for a while, I have a gut feeling that says something isn't right with the current terms and conditions. I'll update how things go on Monday, which is my deadline for replying.
19 May 2005
Change
I'll put it sort of cryptically - tomorrow I hand in a piece of paper that says 'next time, my flight from Australia to the US won't be return'.
17 May 2005
(Kristian == nerd) == TRUE?
Noooo! Lately I've been feeling it... I've been working absolutely ridiculous hours at work and I'm nearly getting used to it. I'm coming to expect it of myself. This has to change, and it has to change now. I admit I may be a little nerdy - heck look at my bloody blog icon - it's from a bleedin' 1986 Nintendo game. I used to read microprocessor spec documents 'for fun'. Shit shit shit.
I watch Dr Who, I watch Battleship Galactica, I own Star Trek tapes.
Crap crap crap.
Well, I may as well accept the fact.
So you can imagine how cool I find the Electronic Entertainment Expo! Dang, those PS3 videos look absolutely awesome http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_6124681.html.
*sigh*
However, I am proud to say that I couldn't care less about missing out on the premiere of Star Wars and actually only getting to see it in, ooh, a week or two. Episode 1 sucked hard, Episode 2 sucked a little less and maybe this one will be ok. Meh, whatever.
I watch Dr Who, I watch Battleship Galactica, I own Star Trek tapes.
Crap crap crap.
Well, I may as well accept the fact.
So you can imagine how cool I find the Electronic Entertainment Expo! Dang, those PS3 videos look absolutely awesome http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_6124681.html.
*sigh*
However, I am proud to say that I couldn't care less about missing out on the premiere of Star Wars and actually only getting to see it in, ooh, a week or two. Episode 1 sucked hard, Episode 2 sucked a little less and maybe this one will be ok. Meh, whatever.
15 May 2005
Winky vs Trinidad
I went to a friend's house Satdee night to watch a boxing fight on HBO pay per view. Now let me get this straight - I ain't the biggest fan of boxing. Actually I'd usually go out of my way to avoid watching fights because I just think it's sort of cave man like but I tucked all those thoughts away and just watched the damn thing. The fight was between Winky Wright and Felix Trinidad. The 'local' boy Winky ended up winning, even with a rather distracting boil or whatever the heck it was on his neck. Dis-gust-ing. Check the link here for some more fight details.
What I found really funny about the fight was the absolute crap and fluff the commentators dribbled to fill in time. It was just incredibly stupid stuff. My absolute favourite part though was when one of the commentators was trying to make a point that something was the exact opposite, so he resorted to this analogy (not exact wording but): "Take for example Afghanistan and then being all the way on the opposite side of the world . . . like Denmark". Hmmm, stick to the boxing world buddy. The real world is probably too big for you. It sort of surprised me he didn't say Iraq, because that's another country that the media here has been mentioning for some reason.
Speaking of funny, what I saw today cracked me up a bit. I'd pulled up at a set of lights and was watching some people get out of their car at the intersection and push it across because it had broken down. What was written on the windows? "For sale".
And to finish off the triple play of funnies, here is a website dedicated to chicks being filmed trying to get their bogged cars out of mud and so forth.
http://www.carstuckgirls.com/.
It's funny how you come across sites like that which are totally unrelated to the material you're reading at the time. I checked out the FAQ to get a 'please explain' for the website and all it had was help in sorting out technical difficulties with getting the videos to play. Oh, and it describes how they keep the packaging discrete. I guess that's so your significant other doesn't find out you have a . . . chicks-getting-cars-stuck-in-mud fetish? Ohhhhh kaaaay.
What I found really funny about the fight was the absolute crap and fluff the commentators dribbled to fill in time. It was just incredibly stupid stuff. My absolute favourite part though was when one of the commentators was trying to make a point that something was the exact opposite, so he resorted to this analogy (not exact wording but): "Take for example Afghanistan and then being all the way on the opposite side of the world . . . like Denmark". Hmmm, stick to the boxing world buddy. The real world is probably too big for you. It sort of surprised me he didn't say Iraq, because that's another country that the media here has been mentioning for some reason.
Speaking of funny, what I saw today cracked me up a bit. I'd pulled up at a set of lights and was watching some people get out of their car at the intersection and push it across because it had broken down. What was written on the windows? "For sale".
And to finish off the triple play of funnies, here is a website dedicated to chicks being filmed trying to get their bogged cars out of mud and so forth.
http://www.carstuckgirls.com/.
It's funny how you come across sites like that which are totally unrelated to the material you're reading at the time. I checked out the FAQ to get a 'please explain' for the website and all it had was help in sorting out technical difficulties with getting the videos to play. Oh, and it describes how they keep the packaging discrete. I guess that's so your significant other doesn't find out you have a . . . chicks-getting-cars-stuck-in-mud fetish? Ohhhhh kaaaay.
10 May 2005
Bro's causing problems again!
At the moment my Bro is lying in a bed in the Royal Adelaide hospital and has been there for the past few days. He's had multiple CAT scans and MRI scans. I've been talking to him and he seems fine at the moment but has to stay in hospital once results from all the scans are in. The doctors said they actually found something - a brain! I say check again!
Anyway bro, hope you get out of there soon - and leave the female French doctors alone, ok? ;-)
UPDATE: He's now out of hospital.
Anyway bro, hope you get out of there soon - and leave the female French doctors alone, ok? ;-)
UPDATE: He's now out of hospital.
Cinco de Mayo pictures
There was a Cinco de Mayo celebration at Tobacco Road last Thursday night and Santos Renuentes were playing there again. I've got pics from the night uploaded here.
09 May 2005
Hard Rock casino
I went out Saturday night to the retail area around Hard Rock casino which has all the clubs and shopping stuff. I've been here a few times and it's pretty good, all things considered. I hadn't been out with that group for a night out before and damn, I ended up having a blast. I think seeing chicks riding mechanical bulls really sealed off the night.
We started off at an Irish pub that was playing songs like "Loveshack" by the B-52s. . . yeah. The "DJ" there could not mix fricken salt and water. It was absolutely terrible. I was glad to get out of there. Next we tried getting into a club called "Pangaea". It seemed a group our size was not going to have any luck in getting in without buying a couple of tables though (at $250 each).
Since people were getting restless the decision was made to go to watch some mechanical bull riding at a place called Tequila Ranch, a Mexican themed restaurant. This place apparently doesn't have the best Mexican food around, but it made up for that in other ways. I have to say thankyou Todd for being so pro-bull. Not that Todd will probably ever read this blog but his name is now in here. Words can't describe how fantastic it was to see two girls at once riding a mechanical bull. "2night" were there and here is a link to pictures from the night. I was thinking that'd be a cool gig - taking pictures in all the cool clubs around Miami and surrounding areas with my digital SLR. . . how awesome would that be?! I think it would be as awesome as using someone's fist as a microphone to sing "No woman no cry" and "One love", which is something I ended up doing that night even though I wasn't drunk.
We closed out the country bar and most of the people in our group left after that. Those of us remaining went back to Pangaea hoping to get in this time. We got in no problemo and even slipped past the girl at the door collecting money because she was busy messaging someone on the phone (normally it would cost $20 to get in).
Pangaea is a pretty good club considering its location. Click this link to see a sampling of people who were there the same night. They have an obligatory RnB/Hip Hop room and in another room they have the dance music, which was ok I guess. It was a little too techno if you know what I mean. Too much beat and not enough style. Maybe some other nights they play music which is similar to that on their website.
I was at the bar in Pangaea ordering a drink when I noticed a guy having an epileptic fit on the floor not far from me. There was the typical crowd of stunned onlookers - of course no-one could have done much at that stage of a fit. But once the fit subsided I didn't see anyone putting him into the recovery position and checking his airways etc. So can you guess who had to do this? I didn't hang around for too long though as there were a few of his friends who were there to take care of him.
All things considered though, it wasn't a bad night at all.
We started off at an Irish pub that was playing songs like "Loveshack" by the B-52s. . . yeah. The "DJ" there could not mix fricken salt and water. It was absolutely terrible. I was glad to get out of there. Next we tried getting into a club called "Pangaea". It seemed a group our size was not going to have any luck in getting in without buying a couple of tables though (at $250 each).
Since people were getting restless the decision was made to go to watch some mechanical bull riding at a place called Tequila Ranch, a Mexican themed restaurant. This place apparently doesn't have the best Mexican food around, but it made up for that in other ways. I have to say thankyou Todd for being so pro-bull. Not that Todd will probably ever read this blog but his name is now in here. Words can't describe how fantastic it was to see two girls at once riding a mechanical bull. "2night" were there and here is a link to pictures from the night. I was thinking that'd be a cool gig - taking pictures in all the cool clubs around Miami and surrounding areas with my digital SLR. . . how awesome would that be?! I think it would be as awesome as using someone's fist as a microphone to sing "No woman no cry" and "One love", which is something I ended up doing that night even though I wasn't drunk.
We closed out the country bar and most of the people in our group left after that. Those of us remaining went back to Pangaea hoping to get in this time. We got in no problemo and even slipped past the girl at the door collecting money because she was busy messaging someone on the phone (normally it would cost $20 to get in).
Pangaea is a pretty good club considering its location. Click this link to see a sampling of people who were there the same night. They have an obligatory RnB/Hip Hop room and in another room they have the dance music, which was ok I guess. It was a little too techno if you know what I mean. Too much beat and not enough style. Maybe some other nights they play music which is similar to that on their website.
I was at the bar in Pangaea ordering a drink when I noticed a guy having an epileptic fit on the floor not far from me. There was the typical crowd of stunned onlookers - of course no-one could have done much at that stage of a fit. But once the fit subsided I didn't see anyone putting him into the recovery position and checking his airways etc. So can you guess who had to do this? I didn't hang around for too long though as there were a few of his friends who were there to take care of him.
All things considered though, it wasn't a bad night at all.
08 May 2005
Kung Fu movies and beer
Don't mix them. Especially don't mix beer and "Kung Fu Hustle". A friend and I did that Friday night and I think it was the weirdest movie experience I've ever had. That movie probably doesn't need the help of alcohol to make it interesting anyway.
03 May 2005
Ft Lauderdale Air and Sea show
On Sunday here were the reasons why I hauled my arse out of bed at 7:00am in the morning to get a good seat for the Ft. Lauderdale Air and Sea show:
F-117 Nighthawk
B-2 Stealth Bomber
B-52 Stratofortress
A-10 Warthog
F-14 Tomcat
AV-8B Harrier
V-22 Osprey
last, and certainly not least, F-22 Raptor.
None of those planes showed up the whole damn day. I haven't seen any of these planes in real life yet. Exactly these planes were supposed to be there (pending operational availability blah blah blah). Was I disappointed? Yeah, a bit. I did get some pics though and a tan and I did get weirded out several times during the day. What I mean is, the show was obviously very American. Duh. The whole "support our troops" slogan was getting compressed into my ears and that just made me realise I really was over in the US. I go by every day not really thinking about that too much. Then a reality spin thing happened when I didn't really believe I was here and everything seemed to do a 180 degree turn. I also got that tinnitus or ringing in my ear just to help with the outer-body feeling. It was weird.
Here is the link to the damn pictures: click me, click me now.
F-117 Nighthawk
B-2 Stealth Bomber
B-52 Stratofortress
A-10 Warthog
F-14 Tomcat
AV-8B Harrier
V-22 Osprey
last, and certainly not least, F-22 Raptor.
None of those planes showed up the whole damn day. I haven't seen any of these planes in real life yet. Exactly these planes were supposed to be there (pending operational availability blah blah blah). Was I disappointed? Yeah, a bit. I did get some pics though and a tan and I did get weirded out several times during the day. What I mean is, the show was obviously very American. Duh. The whole "support our troops" slogan was getting compressed into my ears and that just made me realise I really was over in the US. I go by every day not really thinking about that too much. Then a reality spin thing happened when I didn't really believe I was here and everything seemed to do a 180 degree turn. I also got that tinnitus or ringing in my ear just to help with the outer-body feeling. It was weird.
Here is the link to the damn pictures: click me, click me now.
Tobacco Road, 28th April
I especially went to Tobacco Road on Thursday night to get some pictures of Santos Renuentes playing an acoustic set, something that I hadn't heard them do before. There was going to be a delay with starting their set so my friend and I decided to get some food downstairs. I had just about finished my meal when I thought "hold on... they should have started by now". I raced upstairs and they were nearly finished. Sophia gave me a greeting saying something like "I'm glad you finally came to watch our show, Kristian." I found out later that while I was downstairs stuffing my face she did a shout out for me two songs prior because I always went to their gigs.... and I was nowhere to be seen at that time. Bloody hell.
Anyway, travelling to Miami to watch a live acoustic set and then nearly missing it completely - am I a knob or what? I did get some pics from their last song though that can be found here
. There is also a picture in that set of the back of Tobacco Road. You can see one of the members of the outdoor band playing through the entrance. Damn I love my new lens.
Anyway, travelling to Miami to watch a live acoustic set and then nearly missing it completely - am I a knob or what? I did get some pics from their last song though that can be found here
. There is also a picture in that set of the back of Tobacco Road. You can see one of the members of the outdoor band playing through the entrance. Damn I love my new lens.
01 May 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
Yes, the birthdays are coming in thick and fast it seems, so while I'm at it:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAHA!
Dang nammit!
It's currently 4:42am Sunday morning in Florida. I have to be up in 2 hours to get ready to go to the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea show. How much do you wanna bet that I sleep through my alarm???
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAHA!
Dang nammit!
It's currently 4:42am Sunday morning in Florida. I have to be up in 2 hours to get ready to go to the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea show. How much do you wanna bet that I sleep through my alarm???
28 April 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO!
Yes, it's April 29th over in Oz and my brother is the big two-zero today. He's not a teenager anymore, and here's hoping he starts acting his age!!! Just JOSHin bro! Have a good one.
Bring your kids to work day
That's what day it is today at work. It's a day that makes me feel especially old, even though I'm really not that old at all on the scale of things. The kids are coming into meetings, they're playing with their parents' PDAs and running around and having fun. And then I'm trying to get work done. No, I am by no means angry, but I just wish I was a kid again. I remember the days playing in the sand pit, creating a spaceship out of a fallen tree, playing kiss-chasey and constantly falling over for some reason, 1-2-3 saw ya, "socc-quash", finding "bush tucker" on the Gum tree leaves, seeing my friend get his head stuck between two pieces of wood on a piece of play equipment . . . *sigh*
The gift
Because I've been a supporter of Flickr while it's been in beta I have a free pro account to give away to someone (free for one year, anyway. After that it's $25 US a month to maintain your pro status). To those who don't know what Flickr is, it's an online photo storage service that I use and now love. Much better than the crappy webshots I was using earlier (and which I still have to completely migrate away from). Send me an e-mail if you want one. I'm not going to give it away to anyone though. Here are the conditions:
a) You must actually know me.
b) You must use it well.
The advantages of a pro Flickr account compared to the free Flickr account?
a) 2 GB monthly upload limit (compare with 20 MB for free account)
b) Unlimited storage (limit of 200 photos for free account)
c) Unlimited photosets
d) Permanent archiving of high res photo images
e) Ad-free browsing and sharing (most of the time)
a) You must actually know me.
b) You must use it well.
The advantages of a pro Flickr account compared to the free Flickr account?
a) 2 GB monthly upload limit (compare with 20 MB for free account)
b) Unlimited storage (limit of 200 photos for free account)
c) Unlimited photosets
d) Permanent archiving of high res photo images
e) Ad-free browsing and sharing (most of the time)
The popularity question
So I was driving to work this morning and I noticed that just about everyone I saw was talking on their mobile phone. All people seem to do over here is talk on their bloody phone. I looked at the total amount of time I've spent talking on my Razr and it's 7.5 hours. That's nothing. That's like what some people spend talking on a mobile PER DAY over here. I think I've already posted about Lincoln Mall in South Beach and how all the model-type people have a phone welded to their ear.
I was thinking about this some more and I decided that I do not talk to people back in Oz nearly as much as I wanted to. I have now set up a cheap international calling thingy so I can, and I'm also looking into Skype a bit too. Expect a call from me sometime (that is, if you know me :-)
I was thinking about this some more and I decided that I do not talk to people back in Oz nearly as much as I wanted to. I have now set up a cheap international calling thingy so I can, and I'm also looking into Skype a bit too. Expect a call from me sometime (that is, if you know me :-)
25 April 2005
Weird stuff
Lately I've been feeling a little. . . unusual. Maybe it's because work is just plain bloody hard at the moment. Well, allow me to clarify that for a moment - it's bloody hard for about 1/7th of the time and for the remaining 6/7ths it's an exercise in pure frustration as I try and make all the required changes across, firstly, 380 pages of architecture documentation; 100 pages of design documentation, god knows how many lines of code, unit tests to make sure it all works and finally, integration tests to make sure it all works *together*. Actually, I don't think that would have clarified anything for anybody outside of engineering circles. I thought I had to modify one application when I started this a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that application was actually 7 separate applications. I was originally supposed to finish this all in the space of 3 weeks. That's just crazy talk.
The weekend was interesting as well. Friday night I ended up going to the casino in Hollywood (that's Hollywood, Florida) to check out some of the clubs there. I expected them to be really commercial. They were, in a sense, but I somehow ended up enjoying myself. Saturday night I went to a party in South Beach. The apartment complex was very much like that you'd see in the movies. It was very cool, much like many of the people who were there. I think the last thing I ended up doing before leaving the party was spraying all the mirrors in the apartment with air freshener and then writing my initials. What possessed me to do that I just don't bloody know.
The weekend was interesting as well. Friday night I ended up going to the casino in Hollywood (that's Hollywood, Florida) to check out some of the clubs there. I expected them to be really commercial. They were, in a sense, but I somehow ended up enjoying myself. Saturday night I went to a party in South Beach. The apartment complex was very much like that you'd see in the movies. It was very cool, much like many of the people who were there. I think the last thing I ended up doing before leaving the party was spraying all the mirrors in the apartment with air freshener and then writing my initials. What possessed me to do that I just don't bloody know.
23 April 2005
I rock!
Not a bad $25 souvenir
UPDATE: I was looking at this post again and was thinking "Wow, you got a parking ticket. That's. . . exciting". Well this is my very first parking ticket either over here or in Australia. I left my car overnight in some open space car park and apparently it 'closed' at 2am, which to me seemed rather stupid. Any signs indicating this in the carpark weren't very noticeable. Maybe I should have contacted one of those companies that specialises in trying to get your parking ticket revoked? It's not like there is a shortage of them over here.
Mind you though, this isn't my first car-related offense. Over in Australia I've been caught twice for speeding - one for rushing to a soccer game and the other for coasting down a hill in a stupid 50 km/h zone (and probably listening to DnB at the time), just after those zones got introduced. Over here, even though I regularly go 10 miles/h over the speed limit, I'm pretty safe because there are still people passing me. I was a bit worried that I'd get caught again when I went back to Oz recently as I was still driving like I would be on the I-95.
UPDATE: I was looking at this post again and was thinking "Wow, you got a parking ticket. That's. . . exciting". Well this is my very first parking ticket either over here or in Australia. I left my car overnight in some open space car park and apparently it 'closed' at 2am, which to me seemed rather stupid. Any signs indicating this in the carpark weren't very noticeable. Maybe I should have contacted one of those companies that specialises in trying to get your parking ticket revoked? It's not like there is a shortage of them over here.
Mind you though, this isn't my first car-related offense. Over in Australia I've been caught twice for speeding - one for rushing to a soccer game and the other for coasting down a hill in a stupid 50 km/h zone (and probably listening to DnB at the time), just after those zones got introduced. Over here, even though I regularly go 10 miles/h over the speed limit, I'm pretty safe because there are still people passing me. I was a bit worried that I'd get caught again when I went back to Oz recently as I was still driving like I would be on the I-95.
18 April 2005
Dr Who
I heard that BBC was broadcasting the new Dr Who series over in the UK. I was a big, big fan of Dr Who as a kid. I've seen four episodes of the new series so far and what can I say - it's bloody awesome! It's got lots and lots of British humour which I just can't get enough of. I can't wait to see the next one. Oh, having Billie Piper co-star is also a help.
17 April 2005
Bloody big tree
Stuff seems to be finally trickling in from the many people who have been hoarding the pictures on their cameras. This is one of them taken in front of a Giant Sequoia tree in Yosemite national park late last year that I've stitched together. You can see us standing there way, way down the bottom.
Big tree
I'm also in the process of moving photos from stupid Webshots to flickr so you'll see my flickr bar on the right of this page being updated as I find time.
Big tree
I'm also in the process of moving photos from stupid Webshots to flickr so you'll see my flickr bar on the right of this page being updated as I find time.
15 April 2005
Online cricket game
I've been invited to a hat party in a couple of weeks and I immediately thought "cork hat". I couldn't be bothered making one myself so I looked around for one on the net. I happened to stumble across this site: http://www.stickcricket.com/game.php and I've been playing it for the past 1/2 hour (at work). After working a lot of hours in the past week, I don't care if anyone sees me playing this.
13 April 2005
Refer to last post, put "NOT" at the end
I've been reading a heck of a lot of stuff lately and even in the past day my views on things have swung around greatly because I haven't digested stuff properly. I was thinking last night about my last post and why I said I wouldn't comment on politics, even if I thought it was important. I now think that's a stupid idea, so to that end I *will* post the odd political story/comment *but only* if I feel it's important enough. I'm leaving the previous post as it is though, just to show how quickly my point of view can swing around when I haven't thought stuff through enough :-)
Part of what helped me change my mind was a story I received from one of my friends (thanks Nav!), regarding the upcoming oil crisis: http://www.energybulletin.net/4856.html (it was originally posted on the RollingStone website, but for some reason their link is currently down).
The reason why I found this story particularly interesting was because here where I live in Florida, there seems to be an excess of waste. There is a useless public transport system, there are massive SUVs all over the place. There might be some sort of recycling system here in Broward County but I haven't seen any evidence of one. There certainly isn't at my apartment complex - unless they sort through the rubbish later on and pick out what's recyclable. But I just get the feeling that the lifestyle over here isn't sustainable, what with the mega highways stretching all over the place and just the incredible number of cars everywhere. I have never seen so much development going on either. The suburbs continue to creep outwards at rates I haven't seen before.
Anyway, there are a couple of other stories off the linked website that make for interesting reading too.
UPDATE: Some other views and more info is linked from Boing Boing below.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/13/peak_oil_article_in_.html
Part of what helped me change my mind was a story I received from one of my friends (thanks Nav!), regarding the upcoming oil crisis: http://www.energybulletin.net/4856.html (it was originally posted on the RollingStone website, but for some reason their link is currently down).
The reason why I found this story particularly interesting was because here where I live in Florida, there seems to be an excess of waste. There is a useless public transport system, there are massive SUVs all over the place. There might be some sort of recycling system here in Broward County but I haven't seen any evidence of one. There certainly isn't at my apartment complex - unless they sort through the rubbish later on and pick out what's recyclable. But I just get the feeling that the lifestyle over here isn't sustainable, what with the mega highways stretching all over the place and just the incredible number of cars everywhere. I have never seen so much development going on either. The suburbs continue to creep outwards at rates I haven't seen before.
Anyway, there are a couple of other stories off the linked website that make for interesting reading too.
UPDATE: Some other views and more info is linked from Boing Boing below.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/13/peak_oil_article_in_.html
12 April 2005
My last political comment
on this site, anyway. People who have been keeping up to date with this little distraction of mine may have noticed that I haven't written anything regarding politics for a while. Actually, I only ever wrote a couple of posts. I certainly didn't want to turn this blog into another political rant site. I haven't written anything regarding religion either, nor will I ever. Instead, it's now another site ranting about what stupid/cool/not so cool things I get up to. It will I hope become an outlet for other things sometime in the future... but that time is not now.
However, the title of this post *is* "my last political comment", and while I'm not actually going to say anything myself I will give a link to a site I've recently rediscovered which reflects my thoughts on politics quite nicely. Here 'tis: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
However, the title of this post *is* "my last political comment", and while I'm not actually going to say anything myself I will give a link to a site I've recently rediscovered which reflects my thoughts on politics quite nicely. Here 'tis: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
11 April 2005
Weird state of mind
It happens when you spend most of your weekend inside. I'm like solar powered - I need my sunlight to function properly, or I at least need to step outdoors. This state of mind is completely self inflicted though. I purchased Half Life 2 Friday night and downloaded the game from Valve Software's 'Steam' content service that same night. Thankyou cable internet. I finished it sometime Sunday. What else did I end up doing? Well, I went to work for a few hours both Saturday and Sunday night. Yeah, my project is pretty intense at the moment. So you can pretty much say I spent my whole sunny Florida weekend indoors. Idiot. Actually to be fair on myself I haven't played a computer game for yonks so I had to get it out of my system. Plus, I was evaluating the in-game music that Half Life 2 offered. I wasn't too impressed with it actually. The graphics on the other hand with all the features turned on high - wow. Really nice to look at. I did notice some inconsistencies with water reflections though - some objects just weren't reflected. Maybe I could pimp myself out as a quality consultant. "Here sir, try our Razr V3!" Response: "Yeah, it's a slick phone and all but the menus are too slow! Speed them the hell up!"
Ooh, I purchased a whole orchestra on the weekend. When it arrives I'll let you know how it sounds and maybe I'll try getting it to play an ensemble or two.
Garbage, one of my fav groups, is actually releasing their new album today! It's heaps weird because they haven't released an album in four years, and I haven't really checked their website for about two years. What chance is there that the day I check, they're releasing their new album? And what else did I find out about the group? They'd temporarily broken up? Dang. I gotta read more. I found this review of their new album, which I would've bought no matter how badly it was reviewed to be honest. I think the reviewer was getting a bit ahead of himself - April 25th already? Damn. Time flies. Maybe I took a bit longer than I thought to finish Half Life 2.
EDIT: The album is actually being released on April 12th here in the US and Canada. So I'm not as cool as I thought I was.
Ooh, I purchased a whole orchestra on the weekend. When it arrives I'll let you know how it sounds and maybe I'll try getting it to play an ensemble or two.
Garbage, one of my fav groups, is actually releasing their new album today! It's heaps weird because they haven't released an album in four years, and I haven't really checked their website for about two years. What chance is there that the day I check, they're releasing their new album? And what else did I find out about the group? They'd temporarily broken up? Dang. I gotta read more. I found this review of their new album, which I would've bought no matter how badly it was reviewed to be honest. I think the reviewer was getting a bit ahead of himself - April 25th already? Damn. Time flies. Maybe I took a bit longer than I thought to finish Half Life 2.
EDIT: The album is actually being released on April 12th here in the US and Canada. So I'm not as cool as I thought I was.
08 April 2005
I'm in stitches!
Seriously, I am. If you ever thought things were going bad or just felt a little down, just watch this clip. It's some bloody funny 70's music video diamond in the rough.
http://www.zeronews-fr.com/flash/70s.php
http://www.zeronews-fr.com/flash/70s.php
07 April 2005
I'm counting on you...
So says my project manager. So tonight and last night and probably the next two weeks I'll be burning the midnight oil at work. Yay!
Geez, it feels like ages since I last posted. Nothing much interesting has been going on. Well, hold on, I did get those tickets to see the shuttle launch. Hopefully the dates for the launch don't change around too much, if at all. Apparently you can see the space shuttle shooting upwards from here in Plantation. Keeping in mind that the Kennedy Space Centre is about 200 miles away from here, I'm pretty stoked that I'm going to be only 6 miles away when it does launch. Awesome.
I did do something really stupid recently. I have the ability to do this at least every week it seems. I had to retrofit a new DC power socket onto the end of a transformer that I bought over here that is used for Technics keyboards. No problemo I thought. A soldering iron, some solder and 5 mins later I had a working digital piano. That was until a couple of days ago when I moved the piano around and shorted out the transformer. You see, I left 2 wires going into the plug exposed. I meant to put electrical tape around one of them to isolate it from the other but was too slack. Now I really pay. I now have to open up the transformer and replace the blown fuse, and I can only open the transformer with a hacksaw. The screw heads are welded blunt. Now come on Kristian, repeat after me: "A stitch in time saves nine"
Geez, it feels like ages since I last posted. Nothing much interesting has been going on. Well, hold on, I did get those tickets to see the shuttle launch. Hopefully the dates for the launch don't change around too much, if at all. Apparently you can see the space shuttle shooting upwards from here in Plantation. Keeping in mind that the Kennedy Space Centre is about 200 miles away from here, I'm pretty stoked that I'm going to be only 6 miles away when it does launch. Awesome.
I did do something really stupid recently. I have the ability to do this at least every week it seems. I had to retrofit a new DC power socket onto the end of a transformer that I bought over here that is used for Technics keyboards. No problemo I thought. A soldering iron, some solder and 5 mins later I had a working digital piano. That was until a couple of days ago when I moved the piano around and shorted out the transformer. You see, I left 2 wires going into the plug exposed. I meant to put electrical tape around one of them to isolate it from the other but was too slack. Now I really pay. I now have to open up the transformer and replace the blown fuse, and I can only open the transformer with a hacksaw. The screw heads are welded blunt. Now come on Kristian, repeat after me: "A stitch in time saves nine"
03 April 2005
Another thing I'm pretty stoked about
Tickets for the next Space Shuttle launch go on sale tomorrow morning here in the US. Although it doesn't really matter if I don't get them - there are still places I can go to view the launch for free - the tickets get me the closest to the launch (6 miles away). That will be absolutely friggen awesome I think. Plus, Andrew Thomas from Adelaide is one of the astronauts. Even more awesome.
Did I ever tell you I love astronomy? I love it so much that I get pissed off when people say "look, there is the saucepan!" I'n my head I'm thinking "Well, that's actually part of the constellation Orion...". Bah! Anyway, I spent many a night with my telescope looking out at the night sky when I lived in Pata (we lived there for a couple of years again when I was beginning high school). You could imagine that viewing conditions there were awesome because there was nothing else around.
Anyway, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up, apart from an archeologist, psychologist, biochemist, doctor or electronics engineer was an astronomer. The thought of going up in a space shuttle always freaked me out a little - especially after seeing the Challenger disaster in 1986, so I never wanted to be an astronaut. I guess at the time I settled for the next best thing, in a sense. But now that I like rollercoasters maybe I should give it a shot? Heheh.
Did I ever tell you I love astronomy? I love it so much that I get pissed off when people say "look, there is the saucepan!" I'n my head I'm thinking "Well, that's actually part of the constellation Orion...". Bah! Anyway, I spent many a night with my telescope looking out at the night sky when I lived in Pata (we lived there for a couple of years again when I was beginning high school). You could imagine that viewing conditions there were awesome because there was nothing else around.
Anyway, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up, apart from an archeologist, psychologist, biochemist, doctor or electronics engineer was an astronomer. The thought of going up in a space shuttle always freaked me out a little - especially after seeing the Challenger disaster in 1986, so I never wanted to be an astronaut. I guess at the time I settled for the next best thing, in a sense. But now that I like rollercoasters maybe I should give it a shot? Heheh.
More pictures to peruse
I've just uploaded 50 or so pictures from my trip to Australia. I'm still not completed with all the pictures though. There are some from the Adelaide 500 that aren't up, plus I'm missing a whole CD of pictures that are still back in Oz. Ahh well. The ones I have uploaded are here.
I only took a few pictures in Sydney because I didn't have enough time to get all touristy. Most of the pictures are from when I went to visit my Uncle and Aunt out on the farm(s) which is about 25 kilometres from Loxton. I think one of the coolest pictures though is of my 9 year old cousin driving a manual car. That was just awesome! You'll also realise I have a penchant for old stuff - whether it be old houses or broken down machinery. Not all of those pictures are up yet. Might I add: not all of Australia is like this! Most of the Australia population lives in cities along the coast. I've deliberately gone out of my way to show this side of Australia. Oh, and there are no pictures of kangaroos. We did see some, but they hopped away to quickly for me to get a picture of them.
There are also a few pictures from inside an old house. My uncle used to hold parties there apparently and everyone was given paint and they could paint whatever they wanted. There is some pretty interesting stuff there.
I only took a few pictures in Sydney because I didn't have enough time to get all touristy. Most of the pictures are from when I went to visit my Uncle and Aunt out on the farm(s) which is about 25 kilometres from Loxton. I think one of the coolest pictures though is of my 9 year old cousin driving a manual car. That was just awesome! You'll also realise I have a penchant for old stuff - whether it be old houses or broken down machinery. Not all of those pictures are up yet. Might I add: not all of Australia is like this! Most of the Australia population lives in cities along the coast. I've deliberately gone out of my way to show this side of Australia. Oh, and there are no pictures of kangaroos. We did see some, but they hopped away to quickly for me to get a picture of them.
There are also a few pictures from inside an old house. My uncle used to hold parties there apparently and everyone was given paint and they could paint whatever they wanted. There is some pretty interesting stuff there.
31 March 2005
Nothing to see here, move along now
If you've been watching the news, Florida has been in it again. Damn, a lot of stuff goes on over here... or at least the media would have you believe that. What I have seen just made me sick, and everyone thinks they should have a say in what happens. It's really not anyone else's business. Let the people who are affected be in peace. But I'm not going to comment on that any more :-)
Otherwise, I've been struggling with a dodgy home internet connection this week, which sort of sucks because I've gotten used to data flying around at high speed. And I've been reading books and stuff. I've got nothing further to add though.
Oh, Sony did release their PSP over here this last week. I am not interested in buying one at all. (1)
Also, now that I remember, I did go to Opium Garden in South Beach last weekend. My quest to get to most of Miami's cool bars and clubs continues. It's a pretty awesome place and had some cranking music playing. I don't know how the hell we got in, considering we didn't have any girls with us. I didn't see any Hilton sisters or anyone famous, or at least I didn't recognise anyone famous. If I saw Puff Daddy (or whatever the heck he's calling himself) there I probably would have spat on his shoe (in my vibrant imagination, anyway) for all the unoriginal music he's pumped out.
(1) Yeah, right.
Otherwise, I've been struggling with a dodgy home internet connection this week, which sort of sucks because I've gotten used to data flying around at high speed. And I've been reading books and stuff. I've got nothing further to add though.
Oh, Sony did release their PSP over here this last week. I am not interested in buying one at all. (1)
Also, now that I remember, I did go to Opium Garden in South Beach last weekend. My quest to get to most of Miami's cool bars and clubs continues. It's a pretty awesome place and had some cranking music playing. I don't know how the hell we got in, considering we didn't have any girls with us. I didn't see any Hilton sisters or anyone famous, or at least I didn't recognise anyone famous. If I saw Puff Daddy (or whatever the heck he's calling himself) there I probably would have spat on his shoe (in my vibrant imagination, anyway) for all the unoriginal music he's pumped out.
(1) Yeah, right.
29 March 2005
Pretty stoked about this
Here is a quick pic of part of my living space over here in the US. What I'm exceptionally happy about is that thing sitting to the left of the picture, for which I've finally found a power supply and is now working. Yay!
Also, the Ultrafest dance music festival was awesome. But I've gotta get the pics and movies from my friend's camera before I write a dedicated post about it. I was a bit unhappy that I didn't get a movie of Chris and Mike from Hybrid doing their DJ set - the battery on the camera I was using was too low. I did get a couple of pics though. Anyway, more about that later.
Also, the Ultrafest dance music festival was awesome. But I've gotta get the pics and movies from my friend's camera before I write a dedicated post about it. I was a bit unhappy that I didn't get a movie of Chris and Mike from Hybrid doing their DJ set - the battery on the camera I was using was too low. I did get a couple of pics though. Anyway, more about that later.
25 March 2005
Ultra Music Festival 2005
I'm pretty stoked at the moment. I just received my ticket for Ultra Music Festival 2005. This is supposed to be America's biggest electronic music event, which is saying something in terms of size. Although I'm expecting it to be multiple times as large as Enchanted (approx. 50,000 people are expected to attend) I doubt it'll have the same charm as Enchanted as none of my Aussie Enchanted friends will be there! Ah well.
I'm incredibly bloody picky about what electronic music I listen to - a lot of the harder techno styles I think are utter crap and could have been written by monkeys, and most of the dance music I've heard whilst I've been over here has been... uninspiring. I dunno, if it's dance music it has to have a certain latin flavour for me to like it but then again it can't be too laid back. I don't really like the really hard drum and bass stuff either. Sometimes it sounds like someone with no music knowledge at all sat on a keyboard and pressed record. But then I still do like a lot of other DnB songs. Like I said, I'm picky. So on that front I'm very interested to see what this will be like. Once I've recovered from this event I'll write up a review, or something like that.
I'm incredibly bloody picky about what electronic music I listen to - a lot of the harder techno styles I think are utter crap and could have been written by monkeys, and most of the dance music I've heard whilst I've been over here has been... uninspiring. I dunno, if it's dance music it has to have a certain latin flavour for me to like it but then again it can't be too laid back. I don't really like the really hard drum and bass stuff either. Sometimes it sounds like someone with no music knowledge at all sat on a keyboard and pressed record. But then I still do like a lot of other DnB songs. Like I said, I'm picky. So on that front I'm very interested to see what this will be like. Once I've recovered from this event I'll write up a review, or something like that.
A song about Bambi
I think my flight back to the US was the worst ever for jet-lag and annoyance factor. American Airlines has yet to prove to me they can get me somewhere without being over an hour late. Well, here's hoping for the future!
I knew things were going to be bad when I arrived in the US because I had a connecting flight through Dallas, TX to Fort Lauderdale. Of course the flight from LA to Dallas was an hour late, so as I touched down in Dallas I was supposed to be boarding my next plane. I ran out of the arrival gate (A24 for future reference) and across the travelators to the adjacent terminal to get to gate C4. Just as I arrived I heard an announcement that the gate had changed to C11. After moving to that gate and waiting for about 15 minutes (yes, not surprisingly the outgoing flight was going to be late departing) we had another gate change to C2. On the way over to that gate there was a guy strumming a guitar with a girl tagging along with him. I said to him "you should sing us a song about all these gate changes!" So he did! It was pretty funny. His name was Ryan and when I asked him what he did he said "Dude! I surf, dude!" (I kid you not). I think he was actually a construction worker by day but lived right on the beachfront in California and surfed at night mostly. The girl he had with him, Krista, was also from California. He was your typical cliche surfer. Blonde hair, even a beard and the most surfie sounding voice I've ever heard. If you've watched Finding Nemo just think about all those turtles Nemo meets. Exactly the same sort of voice. It was freaking hilarious!
We had not finished the musical chairs with the gates yet - an announcement made over the PA system said that our plane was now leaving from gate A29. This was back at the terminal we'd arrived at originally. Amazing! We sat down - Ryan chose to sit in a wheelchair - and he played some more of the 'songs' he'd written. One was about Bambi and how one day Bambi was just minding his own business when a hunter shot him, took him to McDonald's where they processed him and then put him in a burger. I was in stitches because the words to the song seemed to be... I dunno, influenced by weed when he would've written them.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of a guy sitting in a wheelchair playing a $20 guitar from Target whilst singing songs about Bambi. So here ya go:
Nuff said? I think so ;-)
I knew things were going to be bad when I arrived in the US because I had a connecting flight through Dallas, TX to Fort Lauderdale. Of course the flight from LA to Dallas was an hour late, so as I touched down in Dallas I was supposed to be boarding my next plane. I ran out of the arrival gate (A24 for future reference) and across the travelators to the adjacent terminal to get to gate C4. Just as I arrived I heard an announcement that the gate had changed to C11. After moving to that gate and waiting for about 15 minutes (yes, not surprisingly the outgoing flight was going to be late departing) we had another gate change to C2. On the way over to that gate there was a guy strumming a guitar with a girl tagging along with him. I said to him "you should sing us a song about all these gate changes!" So he did! It was pretty funny. His name was Ryan and when I asked him what he did he said "Dude! I surf, dude!" (I kid you not). I think he was actually a construction worker by day but lived right on the beachfront in California and surfed at night mostly. The girl he had with him, Krista, was also from California. He was your typical cliche surfer. Blonde hair, even a beard and the most surfie sounding voice I've ever heard. If you've watched Finding Nemo just think about all those turtles Nemo meets. Exactly the same sort of voice. It was freaking hilarious!
We had not finished the musical chairs with the gates yet - an announcement made over the PA system said that our plane was now leaving from gate A29. This was back at the terminal we'd arrived at originally. Amazing! We sat down - Ryan chose to sit in a wheelchair - and he played some more of the 'songs' he'd written. One was about Bambi and how one day Bambi was just minding his own business when a hunter shot him, took him to McDonald's where they processed him and then put him in a burger. I was in stitches because the words to the song seemed to be... I dunno, influenced by weed when he would've written them.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of a guy sitting in a wheelchair playing a $20 guitar from Target whilst singing songs about Bambi. So here ya go:
Nuff said? I think so ;-)
23 March 2005
Radioshack sucks
Well the one at 8249 W Sunrise Blvd does anyway. I've been trying to locate a power supply for my piano (yep, I'm still talking about it) because the power supply I have from Australia can't run on 110 volts. I went to a piano store today where I got some extremely good service and I bought at very good prices a heavy duty keyboard stand as well as a 12 volt 2 amp power supply for a technics keyboard. This is exactly the voltage and amperage that I required! However I knew I'd have to change the plug for it so that it'd fit into my digital piano. No problem - I thought I'd quickly pop by a Radioshack and get a DC plug adapter kit or something similar.
Queue bad assumption.
I went into the Radioshack store and after waiting 5 minutes whilst the attendants crapped on about nothing I was finally served. I explained my dilemma to an attendant but only got back an impatient blank stare. He said it couldn't be done, to which I called bullshit. He said that the plugs they had were only rated to 1000mA, which he kindly pointed out was 1 amp, which, thank god, he also pointed out was less than 2 amps. This guy was really, really good! I was also thinking the statement that the plugs were only rated to 1 amp (or 1000 mA, which by the way is less than 2000 mA, 2000 mA being equal to 2 amps) was a bit of bullshit too. I'm pretty sure the plugs could handle a few amps at the very least. The amp limitation with such small scale situations would be with the transformer wiring that the plug is connected to. But anyway, after the attendant "helped" me he moved over to a keyboard/microphone setup and started playing random notes and attempted to sing. Both the keyboard playing and singing were absolutely terrible and nearly caused my eardrums to burst. I got out of that place quick smart. It sort of felt like I was in the twilight zone or something similar. A very, very surreal experience!
Queue bad assumption.
I went into the Radioshack store and after waiting 5 minutes whilst the attendants crapped on about nothing I was finally served. I explained my dilemma to an attendant but only got back an impatient blank stare. He said it couldn't be done, to which I called bullshit. He said that the plugs they had were only rated to 1000mA, which he kindly pointed out was 1 amp, which, thank god, he also pointed out was less than 2 amps. This guy was really, really good! I was also thinking the statement that the plugs were only rated to 1 amp (or 1000 mA, which by the way is less than 2000 mA, 2000 mA being equal to 2 amps) was a bit of bullshit too. I'm pretty sure the plugs could handle a few amps at the very least. The amp limitation with such small scale situations would be with the transformer wiring that the plug is connected to. But anyway, after the attendant "helped" me he moved over to a keyboard/microphone setup and started playing random notes and attempted to sing. Both the keyboard playing and singing were absolutely terrible and nearly caused my eardrums to burst. I got out of that place quick smart. It sort of felt like I was in the twilight zone or something similar. A very, very surreal experience!
22 March 2005
You're pretty cool for a guy who wears a kilt
Goldberg is a champion of drinking, there is no doubt in that. For his size I just do not know how he stays upright. I guess the only explanation is he has had a lot of practice.
This story begins with the wedding of Adam and Emma. Matt was drinking hard at the reception and was getting more and more drunk. He came to me at some point and said "hey dude... doooo ya reckon youuu can dddrive me into town tonight?? ?? I need a liffffft in becosh I've been drinking a little too mussh." (ok, it wasn't quite that bad). I had no problem with this as I wasn't really drinking at all (if you don't know why then read back a few posts).
What happened for the rest of the night is just amazing. We drove into the city later on and he drank about 1/2 a bottle of Sambuca on the way. We went to the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace. I don't know why we did, that just felt like the thing to do. Anyway at some point I noticed a grand piano down in the Cascades lounge and said to Matt "you gotta go play that!" About 10 minutes later that's exactly what he was doing. Remember that at this time he was completely and utterly off his face. The waiter approached Matt and said "can you play this" and Matt said "yeah, of course". After Matt had been playing for a while the waiter began bringing him free drinks! There were some other people there who were clapping and cheering Matt on too. What happened next was just weird. A few people had congregated around the piano requesting songs.
Not long after that a person equally as drunk as Matt started breakdancing to a bloody piano, or at least attempting to. Bear in mind we're listening to some of Matt's original songs, songs by Ben Folds and other songs by Billy Joel.
A guy wearing a kilt sat down next to Matt and started playing. He was a pretty good piano player too. This was when I heard Matt say to him: "You're pretty cool for a guy who wears a kilt!" I can't remember why the guy was wearing a kilt at 2am in the morning, but he was a percussionist (and it seemed a regular muso too since he could play piano) and had taken part in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo at least once. Here is a pic of Matt and the Kilt dude to Matt's right playing the piano.
Matt also plays in a band called "Bernee". I took some pictures at his latest gig which he's put up on the Bernee website. I wish I could have used my new f1.4 lens but I had to make do with what I had. Eventually I'll get around to putting my edited pics up on Flickr. Big emphasis on eventually.
This story begins with the wedding of Adam and Emma. Matt was drinking hard at the reception and was getting more and more drunk. He came to me at some point and said "hey dude... doooo ya reckon youuu can dddrive me into town tonight?? ?? I need a liffffft in becosh I've been drinking a little too mussh." (ok, it wasn't quite that bad). I had no problem with this as I wasn't really drinking at all (if you don't know why then read back a few posts).
What happened for the rest of the night is just amazing. We drove into the city later on and he drank about 1/2 a bottle of Sambuca on the way. We went to the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace. I don't know why we did, that just felt like the thing to do. Anyway at some point I noticed a grand piano down in the Cascades lounge and said to Matt "you gotta go play that!" About 10 minutes later that's exactly what he was doing. Remember that at this time he was completely and utterly off his face. The waiter approached Matt and said "can you play this" and Matt said "yeah, of course". After Matt had been playing for a while the waiter began bringing him free drinks! There were some other people there who were clapping and cheering Matt on too. What happened next was just weird. A few people had congregated around the piano requesting songs.
Not long after that a person equally as drunk as Matt started breakdancing to a bloody piano, or at least attempting to. Bear in mind we're listening to some of Matt's original songs, songs by Ben Folds and other songs by Billy Joel.
A guy wearing a kilt sat down next to Matt and started playing. He was a pretty good piano player too. This was when I heard Matt say to him: "You're pretty cool for a guy who wears a kilt!" I can't remember why the guy was wearing a kilt at 2am in the morning, but he was a percussionist (and it seemed a regular muso too since he could play piano) and had taken part in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo at least once. Here is a pic of Matt and the Kilt dude to Matt's right playing the piano.
Matt also plays in a band called "Bernee". I took some pictures at his latest gig which he's put up on the Bernee website. I wish I could have used my new f1.4 lens but I had to make do with what I had. Eventually I'll get around to putting my edited pics up on Flickr. Big emphasis on eventually.
Back in Florida
If someone could tell me what the hell happened in the last 2 weeks (well, it wasn't even that) then I'd feel a little more at ease at the moment. I really do not know what the hell is going on. I entered my apartment last night at 2:30am, slept until about 6pm and then have been wondering around in a daze for the last few hours. It certainly does not feel like I was just on a holiday.
I did not catch up with everyone I wanted to, that is a fact. Next time I do something like this I know how I'm going to do it differently. From the get-go I can name a few people who I didn't get around to catching up with (Frosty, Matt F, Guy, Paul K) which makes me a bit disappointed in myself. Sorry guys, I was completely and utterly out of time and frustrated at the fact that I didn't have more.
Anyway, I'm back here now. I know I've got a ton of work to do - god knows how I'll get any of it done but I've also got a couple of interesting stories from my trip back. I'll be posting them soon.
One thing you won't hear me talking about anymore is me trying to purchase my digital piano. I now have one! Yes I bought my Kawai ES3 in Sydney and now it is sitting here with me in my apartment. I thought for a while there that I would have to fedex it back or something which would have cost me upwards of $800. Ouch! Fortunately I was able to take it on the plane for free. I just went on a quick trip to Walmart to see if they had any 12V/2 amp AC-DC converters so I could play it but no luck. I also have to buy a heavy duty stand for it too. More $$$.
Anyway the daily show starts pretty soon so I have to catch up on that.
I did not catch up with everyone I wanted to, that is a fact. Next time I do something like this I know how I'm going to do it differently. From the get-go I can name a few people who I didn't get around to catching up with (Frosty, Matt F, Guy, Paul K) which makes me a bit disappointed in myself. Sorry guys, I was completely and utterly out of time and frustrated at the fact that I didn't have more.
Anyway, I'm back here now. I know I've got a ton of work to do - god knows how I'll get any of it done but I've also got a couple of interesting stories from my trip back. I'll be posting them soon.
One thing you won't hear me talking about anymore is me trying to purchase my digital piano. I now have one! Yes I bought my Kawai ES3 in Sydney and now it is sitting here with me in my apartment. I thought for a while there that I would have to fedex it back or something which would have cost me upwards of $800. Ouch! Fortunately I was able to take it on the plane for free. I just went on a quick trip to Walmart to see if they had any 12V/2 amp AC-DC converters so I could play it but no luck. I also have to buy a heavy duty stand for it too. More $$$.
Anyway the daily show starts pretty soon so I have to catch up on that.
14 March 2005
Back in Loxton
Ok. My heart rate has hit rock-bottom now. I'm now in the town where I grew up: Loxton, South Australia. It's a country town about 250 km out of Adelaide with a population of around 7000. It's a nice and tidy place to be - and I had my first schnitzel in over 8 months last night at the Loxton pub!
I'm not feeling weirded out today like I was for the past few days. I'd say that I got over my jetlag but I never had any to begin with. Now I'm just wondering how the hell I'm going to be able to visit all the people I want to see while I am back here down under.
I fixed the flickr problem with not being able to see the larger versions of pictures. That was a stuff-up on the configuration settings on my part. Now you just have to look to the right hand side of the picture where the photo info is and it'll say 'view larger versions' or something like that. Of course, I'm going to have to put some interesting pictures up for anyone to give a damn about looking at them!
I'm also using a computer at the moment that has instant messenger on it. I hate it. Yes, it can be useful for work but outside of work I just think it's a bloody annoyance (actually, when you're at work it can be an annoyance too which is why I have to switch it off sometimes). It is especially annoying if the people who try messaging you have names like: "my name ain't elmo but you can tickle me if you like" and "RIP Kahmatah MC Hydro Donnix she got that flow that makes your head spin like you're on antibiotix" - which by the way they've changed to "new york who" in the last 5 minutes because it's cool or something and they're trying to carve an identity for themselves but they're actually just giving themselves stupid f$&ken names that are the size of short novels like everyone else. Whatever.
Anyway, I'm off to eat a decent piece of bread, something I haven't been able to do for the past 8 months. I'm also going to have some Weet-Bix for breakfast - another 'luxury' that I've been missing out on.
I'm not feeling weirded out today like I was for the past few days. I'd say that I got over my jetlag but I never had any to begin with. Now I'm just wondering how the hell I'm going to be able to visit all the people I want to see while I am back here down under.
I fixed the flickr problem with not being able to see the larger versions of pictures. That was a stuff-up on the configuration settings on my part. Now you just have to look to the right hand side of the picture where the photo info is and it'll say 'view larger versions' or something like that. Of course, I'm going to have to put some interesting pictures up for anyone to give a damn about looking at them!
I'm also using a computer at the moment that has instant messenger on it. I hate it. Yes, it can be useful for work but outside of work I just think it's a bloody annoyance (actually, when you're at work it can be an annoyance too which is why I have to switch it off sometimes). It is especially annoying if the people who try messaging you have names like: "my name ain't elmo but you can tickle me if you like" and "RIP Kahmatah MC Hydro Donnix she got that flow that makes your head spin like you're on antibiotix" - which by the way they've changed to "new york who" in the last 5 minutes because it's cool or something and they're trying to carve an identity for themselves but they're actually just giving themselves stupid f$&ken names that are the size of short novels like everyone else. Whatever.
Anyway, I'm off to eat a decent piece of bread, something I haven't been able to do for the past 8 months. I'm also going to have some Weet-Bix for breakfast - another 'luxury' that I've been missing out on.
12 March 2005
Where am I?
I'm back in Australia.
Yes! It is true! I was keeping quiet about this because I was going to surprise some people but my cover was blown and so I'm telling everybody this now. I'm currently in Sydney hanging out with Nav and his mates. It's all really fanbloodytastic here and I now realise how much I love and missed Australia. It's an awesome country.
I arrived here on Friday morning and will be heading off to Adelaide on Sunday afternoon. I'll be hanging around Adelaide for about a week and then heading back to the USA. I'll try and catch up with as many people as I can while I'm here!
See y'all.
Yes! It is true! I was keeping quiet about this because I was going to surprise some people but my cover was blown and so I'm telling everybody this now. I'm currently in Sydney hanging out with Nav and his mates. It's all really fanbloodytastic here and I now realise how much I love and missed Australia. It's an awesome country.
I arrived here on Friday morning and will be heading off to Adelaide on Sunday afternoon. I'll be hanging around Adelaide for about a week and then heading back to the USA. I'll try and catch up with as many people as I can while I'm here!
See y'all.
07 March 2005
Remember to pay your bills
Especially if you run a business. *Especially* if you run a nightclub! Angry webmasters have easy ways of getting their revenge. This is a screenshot of the website for "Life", a club down in Miami:
You can try checking out http://www.lifemiami.com for yourself. According to Google's cache this website has been like this for at least the past 2 weeks.
You can try checking out http://www.lifemiami.com for yourself. According to Google's cache this website has been like this for at least the past 2 weeks.
05 March 2005
Trawling the internets on a Saturday night
While I wait for this flu that I've got to go away, I've been finding crap on the net. Here is some of the crap I've found so far today:
Starbucks craptastification of Starship's "We built this city", which I actually used to like listening to as a kid (the Starship version, not this shite). Oh, and don't get me started on Starbucks! I'm not a huge coffee drinker but I'll have a couple of cups a week. My god the coffee over here is generally crap. There are a couple of Euro-themed restaurants that seem to get the coffee right but not much else does. I was working late one night and one of my colleagues asked me if I'd like a coffee. I thought "Yeah, that'd be sweet!" I really started looking forward to my coffee. When he came back I saw that he'd visited the local Starbucks. My mood hit the brakes and swung in the opposite direction. Let me say this: I really, really hate Starbucks coffee. I drank it anyway because he'd gone to all that trouble to get it for me but I think that was the worst coffee I've ever had. I was even worse than when I had a Starbucks coffee in Australia.
Ok, next site: How to win at Pac-Man
Next: Yahoo Serious is still around. Sort of. God damn I can't remember how many times I watched Young Einstein.
Next: The audio from of my favourite movies Office Space (because it's all so true) combined with the visuals provided from an old cartoon series called "Superfriends" involving Batman and Robin, Superman et al. Captain Planet had not been invented yet. Oh, oh, oh, the mash-up movie is here (I think this was done a while back, but it's the first time I've seen it).
Starbucks craptastification of Starship's "We built this city", which I actually used to like listening to as a kid (the Starship version, not this shite). Oh, and don't get me started on Starbucks! I'm not a huge coffee drinker but I'll have a couple of cups a week. My god the coffee over here is generally crap. There are a couple of Euro-themed restaurants that seem to get the coffee right but not much else does. I was working late one night and one of my colleagues asked me if I'd like a coffee. I thought "Yeah, that'd be sweet!" I really started looking forward to my coffee. When he came back I saw that he'd visited the local Starbucks. My mood hit the brakes and swung in the opposite direction. Let me say this: I really, really hate Starbucks coffee. I drank it anyway because he'd gone to all that trouble to get it for me but I think that was the worst coffee I've ever had. I was even worse than when I had a Starbucks coffee in Australia.
Ok, next site: How to win at Pac-Man
Next: Yahoo Serious is still around. Sort of. God damn I can't remember how many times I watched Young Einstein.
Next: The audio from of my favourite movies Office Space (because it's all so true) combined with the visuals provided from an old cartoon series called "Superfriends" involving Batman and Robin, Superman et al. Captain Planet had not been invented yet. Oh, oh, oh, the mash-up movie is here (I think this was done a while back, but it's the first time I've seen it).
More Christmas trip pictures
Are here. I've got pics of signs advertising a brothel called the "Shady Lady Ranch", a nice pic of a Joshua tree, pictures showing my affection with roads going off into the distance, having fun riding bombs, and pictures of highly sophisticated and blossoming towns.
UPDATE: When browsing Flickr photos, you may notice that you can't view higher resolution versions of the photos. They're making a stack of changes at Flickr, so this should be fixed in the near future. It doesn't really worry me at this stage because god damn at least they're actually making changes!
UPDATE: The problem with not being able to view larger images was with me and I've fixed it now.
UPDATE: When browsing Flickr photos, you may notice that you can't view higher resolution versions of the photos. They're making a stack of changes at Flickr, so this should be fixed in the near future. It doesn't really worry me at this stage because god damn at least they're actually making changes!
UPDATE: The problem with not being able to view larger images was with me and I've fixed it now.
03 March 2005
Something's going right
You may wonder why the hell I'm making this post at 5:18 in the morning. Well, I got back from work last night as sick as a dog and fell asleep straight away. I woke up about an hour ago but have so far been unsuccessful in getting back to sleep, so I thought I'd strum the guitar and crank up the compy. I then saw my dead iPod sitting on my desk. I remembered I was supposed to take it in for a warranty exchange a couple of days ago. I thought 'well, there is no harm in trying to charge it again'. I put it in its dock and paint me green and call me Gumby, the bloody thing started charging. As you could imagine I'm pretty chuffed about that! I'm also at a loss to explain why it didn't charge before, even when connected to my friend's proper charger. Weird.
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