Public blogging is arse. Not all you want to share is public.

Pah!

Other stuff -
delicious, not sure if I like this or no - the Flickr thing is cool, being a corp not so sure.
This I dont like.
Ya ya Sydney is such a great place.

A some what scary forecast for Apple freaks at zdnet blogs.

So went and saw Jamiroquai on Saturday, really liked it - haven't been to a concert in bloody ages, did manage a live gig the other night. Although I had been drinking for bloody ages before hand so may not really count, though it was also great.
Barefoot bowls on Sunday and a pub quiz tonight, pub quizzes aren't as crap as I thought.
Cayne found the most amazing online radio err type thing check it out - it's Licioustasticorama, haven't decided if orama is a bit much, oh well.

So what is a below average Apple ad on TV, its a Microsoft ad. Poor, poor, poor - I mean how much bloody money do you need to come up with a good advert.

video ipod and a telly, such a fucking cool idea - nice.

ok, I'm still alive. I am working like a mad bastard also had someone down from the US for training for 6 weeks. Turned into a bit of a learning drinking extravaganser. Oh and I brought a new video ipod, fucking amazing, I haven't played with the video side of it yet. But it is still bloody lovely, and smaller than a small thing, that is quiet small and yet holds a sooooooooo much music. Nice very very nice.

Well iTunes has finally launched after waiting bloody months, currently downloading "Let Us Play" By Coldcut, fucking brilliant.
Will see how fast it downloads,currently looking like 4 minutes to download a eight and a half minute song. Also the err Album ? was only 17 dollars.
About time, Huzzah.

Finally back in my flat, after going to New York. I've been house sitting for some friends who were back a couple of days ago, I left just before they were due back. Could have stayed a few more days, but I've been working such manic hours I figured the last things they wanted was a) someone living in there house, b) some manic getting up at 6 to go to work, coming home whenever having a scotch and doing to bed.

Good to be home, if not a touch weird.

Well that was most mundane, bed time.

Hmmm, last blog was 9/11 and I've just been in NYC for 10 days, weird. Its was good. I'll attempt to blog about it properly at some stage. Finished reading Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham, the copy I was reading didn't have the crap cover in the link, once again I'll attempt to blog more about it at some stage, beautiful book, lovely to read.
I've now started on another Maugham book titled Merry Christmas, which seems wonderful so far.

Fuck me, the bbc are trialing pod casting, this is excellent. The beeb are always ahead of the game.

cool google talk, my gmail address.

Ash must have had a hand in naming this company.
Oh my, how a puerile sense of humor just keeps on giving.

Ash sent me this Chillicam, first decent use of a web cam yet! had a good weekend, well a good sunday. A bit of a drive up to Brooklyn then back down to Sydney via wiseman ferry, err I'll check that name. Amazingly beautiful part of the world and about 45 minute out of sydney we from home-ish. Managed to stop for a few beers with Brent in Gordon.

I'm currently enjoying a rather wonderful Martini, found a good article on them at Salon.
On the olive, lemon zest discussion, it really has to be lemon.
If you leave the olive in till the end, the martini tastes overly strongly of olive, otherwise you have to eat it. If it is a poor quality olive you are left with the taste of olive all through your mouth and martini.
Hence Lemon zest, nice, citrus refreshing and constant.

If you want to piss your self laughing, reread through IM conversations you've been dirnking. I was looking through a skype IM I had with Richard, it was meant to be things I'd have a look at over the weekend, it really just went off tangents all over the show, rambling nonsense, wonderful.

Manic weekend, a few quiet drinks on Friday pretty much turned into a bender ending up at home about 1 making loads of pasta, can't stand, nor talk, but can cook, wonderful.
Woke up a little rough on Saturday just in time for a shower and to run out the door to go have Yum Cha for breakfast, that was pretty much the last coherent action of the weekend, me and a mate got left alone for half an hour while his wife buggered off to look at clothes so we ended up sitting in the sun have a beer.
From there we wandered through Hyde Park to Pier 26 in Darling harbor, for a few pre-match drinks, then off to Telstra Stadium, to watch the Bledisloe Cup. Our state of mind can be summed up by the fact that instead of waiting for the free buses, we jogged to the stadium, not good, not good at all, at least it burnt off some of the booze. What we all remember of the game, it was good, the score was very very good. Excellent seats, in one corner, so had a wonderful view.
Post game is pretty much a lost cause for all concerned when it comes to recollection, I know we stopped at a beer tent on the way to get a train back into town, had quite the lively debate the a few guys, no idea what it was about, lots of laughing though.
<---- LARGE BLANK ------> Drinking at some dodgy pub near central station, pretty much totally incoherent by this point in time, no idea how long we were there or what the hell we got up to, I remember getting a cab home or at least I remember being in a cab then waking up in my flat. A few moments of panic, I was able to find I had all my limbs, a pittance of the money I had left with and all my clothes.
All in all a good weekend, I may take next weekend off and watch a video, maybe have a bottle of wine.

How the fuck do you damage a weapons range ?
It is by definition something you bomb.
Oh shit, oh shit they blew up our dirt,
Stupid bastards.

Big Ad.

My god, Ash was listening to the cricket on the BBC, so I thought I may as well have a listen while I watch on TV, see if I could get some better commentary. What do I discover, Henry Blofeld is still commentating on cricket. I thought he had retired years ago, I'm sure I hadn't heard him commentating for years.
Then again maybe I haven't been watching or listening to enough cricket. I can't describe how happy I am to hear Henry commentating he is just wonderful, lovely, watching the television almost detracts from the game.
Wonderful, just wonderful.

I wrote this off as a load of old bollocks, but having happened to run in to it. Wonderful, watch The Memphis Trousers Half Hour With Roy & H.G..
Wonderful, irreverent comedy.

God I love British television, even while watching on with a shite signal.
Spooks it is just wonderful.

Well, interesting day yesterday, woke up to someone trying to break in through my bedroom window, uncool. Rung the police haven't heard back - I live 50m from a police station.

I don't mind them being that slack, I just want a gun if they are going to not respond.

Fish popped in as well so we nipped round to the National for a meal and some drinks. Wonderful evening but it did make for a long day today.

Checked out the Marble Bar and Zeta bar on Saturday night, I think I prefer Zeta over the Marble, both nice bars though, over all a good day.

Rich T has come through with the business - Stuff on my cat, class, fucking class.

Oh spent 3 hours cleaning my flat tonight, it's 2 rooms how the fuck does that happen, I think about an hour could have been trying to figure out how to stack my CDs without bookend to hold them in place.

I need more music, people need to give me money to buy more CDs, or if apple ever get the fucking useless arses into gear, tracks from itunes in Oz.

Well Emmas found someone else, that took a long time.
Venting don't want to talk about it.

Looks like they are at is again, so far it is on sky news

Excellent, although wonderous song from rather good, Independent Women is still the fave though.

Well almost at the end of a super productive weekend, sleeping and drinking, and a little bit of eating.
The weekend is far to bloody short, just been watching Human Traffic, good movie.
God I'm not looking forward to monday, the weekend needs to be longer.

Ok so I've been back from San Francisco for about a week. Richard has a good write up on his blog, with some pictures.

I can recommend walking over flying United, planes so out of date you would be happier with a DC 3. 747s that looked new when I was flying to the UK in 83, now are cramped and lacking in any of what one would consider the basics, like in seat entertainment or say sound that works or a semi clear picture. Lets not mention the food or the service.

Javaone was good, a touch short of brilliant. A few of the key notes were disappointing, some of the sessions more than made up for them, as did catching up with friends from the UK, I'll attempt to get my head together enough to comment on the sessions / ideas I thought were interesting.

Oh and apart from a few clothing purchases I also got a new toy. It's a Nikon D50, it's nice to have a camera again. It's been bloody agese since I've had an SLR that I can play with whenever I want.

Closed Brighton and Swindon stations

If you in London could you drop me an email if I haven't heard from me today.

Someone has to go over the F1 cock up that occurred this morning ( my time), very glad I didn't wake up at 3:30 to watch.
What a fucking joke. The sport is dying, bring on 2008 and a new championship.
We can then watch Max, Bernie and Ferrari race themselves, as by then they will be the only one left in F1. To do something so monumentally stupid in the US of all places where people think as much of suing someone as saying hello to them, well done Bernie you were worried about the European banks taking all your money, well now it will be a bunch of lawyers.

Quick Book update, not because you're interested, but because I don't have anywhere else to put it yet. I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time a couple of weeks ago, easy going in terms of reading, and relatively enjoyable.

I've just finished The Moon and Sixpence, which is wonderful, well worth a read as imagine all Maugham's books are.

The New York Times as a good biography of Maugham, some what bizarrely in the film section, but still good none, the less.

As a quick note, I've also read Collected Short Stories: Vol 3, which was brilliant, Don't ask me why I started with the 3rd Volume and not the first, I have some vague recollection it had something to do with Emmas suggestion.

Lastly on a geek note, I'm reading rather slowly through Alistair Cockburns Agile Software Development: Software Through People, so far it is easy to read and makes sense. I guess you buy this kind of book to help better understand the ideas
of software development you have bubbling round in your head, well I do anyway *cough*.

Hmmm well it has been a while, not a lot has changed. I've started going out on either a friday or a saturday and then feeling rather unless on a saturday / sunday.
Bloody good fun.

So someone stole my BBQ, I now miss Emma AND my BBQ. Miss the BBQ some what less than Emma, but still. Guess if you live in a country built on thieves what else can you expect.
Fuckers.

Ahhh, there is truly nothing like thinking you have read Penny Arcade for the week and finding a wondrous unread errr comic.
I don't game as much as I used to, I sleep and go to work now. I don't even keep up with gaming anymore, the closest I have gotten is waiting for GT4 & Doom 3. I own GT4 and play about once a week, Doom I've seen and may purchase for my Mac if it is fast enough. It's not that I don't love spending 6 hours of my evening killing things or racing it more that I know that I would wake up one day being forty and the Don at GT 8 but unable to drive a real car.
I digress, read Penny Arcade, not because it's about games, because it is funny as fuck, with a wonderful sense of humor - even if you don't know everyone they are talking about.

Brilliant, Boris is a bit of a dick for the family issue, but still wonderfully funny.

It is hailing here - yay. Just reading The Guardian and found guess the google - fun.

Today would have been four years.

Nasal hair, I'm not a camel, I don't live in the desert, I really don't need that much of it.
Design flaw? I think so.
Humans are adaptable, hair, it grows.
I'm thinking - If I move somewhere dusty let the hair grown, otherwise keep it short.
A much cooler idea, give us the control camels have of the nostrils.

Okay so I have owned a Mac for some indiscernible amount of time (purchased in the second half of 2004) and have just discovered the oblong button in the top right hand corner of most applications that removes all the annoying clutter.
Apart from my complete ignorance how amazing is this, to just have the information you are after and not 400 buttons that you will never use - wonderful.

Righto what started out as a rather pleasant waffle about beer is lost, so here is the short version Peroni is very yummy.
How hard is it to write a web browser that doesn't crash as soon as one encounters flash on multiple tabs ?

Could someone please write a web browser than doesn't suck arse.

Well it turns out that the last show isn't the one I was talking about,It was Just a Minute. Still BASTARDS, as it isn't online either.
God I miss good read.

Bastards ! I'm sorry I haven't a clue, isn't online, pah, it took me ages to find the page as well.
Now listening to quote unquote, on which I have heard "History is one bloody thing after another", which is meant to be a paraphrase of Alan Bennett, check
here, you will have to search on "Alan Bennett".
They are talking about teachers and how they should nurture and provide warmth, which I can understand, I had several teachers who were wonderful and positive, while it has been a while I still remember them. I also remember a few of the bastards who were only there I can only surmise to destroy hope before it has a chance to get a hold. Sixth form Physics teachers for instance.

On a more positive note, How amazing is Wikipedia. If you want to know anything, I'm begining to think - look there.
Yes I know it isn't 100%, but err you think the rest of the internet is - and at least at Wikipedia you can contribute. My only downside is that Cayne has said he has had a bad experience with updating errors. I guess as a starting point it is good and also free :D.
Oh my continuum all things British are wonderful, a Salman Rushdie article in the Guardian.

Will that be the race of the year ?
I would like to think that there will be more racing of that caliber, However I think that given the pace MS has shown through the second half of the race, we are almost due for normal transmission.
Jesus I have turned into a Martin parrot, oh well there goes me thinking I had original thought.
I wonder if MS would like the challenge, it has been a while since he has had anyone to threaten him.
Ha Ha the music going into the break on channel ten is Tool sober, go figure, coming out of the break it was US3 Cantaloop - quite different music.
Channel have figured out how to turn a formula 1 race into a 24 hour event, ad breaks - got to love Australia, especially when you cant leave it.
I would be interested to here why they have so many bloody adverts and why the races are not live. For the love of sweet Jesus we will miss and episode of NCIS or some other shite.
Fuckers - The Australian media do take the consumers for granted, treating them with distain, less respect than roaches.
Once again fuckers - give me online coverage of F1, the same as Motogp. Jesus I don't even have that much passion for F1.
Oh dear Aussie post race coverage, with !@#$%!@ #$!@#$! @#$^!@#$ %!@#$@#$ adverts, could I just say it is quart past one. Who the hell is watching apart from me, I mean really ?

The best use of your bandwidth is BBC Radio, at least 10 stations Content is er cached so you can listen to some shows up to a week later. Which means I have spent the last two days listening to Johnny Vegas, Jonathan Ross, some comedy and Vivaldis Four Seasons, an hour long session with variations by different artists - Brilliant.
Next to find a way to watch BBC 1 through 3, Channel 4 and ITV.

This isn't the way I used to walk to work, still very cool.

when two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches.
Another Proust.
He would have had a Mac, although possibly an iBook rather than a powerbook, something that one can curl up in bed with.

So the Proust quote I mentioned before:
In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have experienced in himself. And the recognition by the reader in his own self of what the book says is proof of its veracity.

There you go then.
So I'm currently reading "How Proust can change your life" by Alain De Botton, and have just finished "The consolations of philosophy", also by De Botton.

Both are brilliant books, for some reason saying "very good" seems like I'm complementing a child. Which would be rather ironic seeing as it is I with the 5 year olds grasp of English, both written and spoken.

Bollocks there was some point to all of this a while back. Ahh yes, the Proust quote, that is now my excuse for day dreaming while reading a book, and not remembering three quarters of it. Nothing to do with an appalling memory.

Watching Freestyle - The Art Of Rhyme on SBS, it amazing. Footage going back to '73 - a very good year. Why are there only 2 channels that ever have good programs instead of mind rotting Simpson's repeats. Hmmm if I remember I'll add a excerpt from Proust I read last night, was brilliant, it was something I had thought about before but never been able to explain.

Ok It would appear having java running while performing the update is what buggered it up, we are all happy now.
I got a lot of help from the java-dev mailing list. Turns out rerunning the SecUpd2005-002 security update did the job, someone on the list also suggested running "sudo update_prebinding", which will sort the java issues as well, I can't confirm this as I think I ran the update,erm I was a wee bit pissed - something I can not recommend.

Oh a different note just got back from the Swans v Crows - go the crows. Was a good game if not very long for those of us who were hungover :(

Apple has released 10.3.9, this should be a good thing, however, I updated and lost Java.
Quite a bad thing for a Java developer one would think.
The update didn't mention that it was going to touch Java so the explanation of what has happened is going to be interesting I think.
It would appear to have corrupted the binaries, as all the java related apps are buggered, java,javac, jar etc. All I get is a segmentation fault.
Not while I'm sure the level of support I get is going to be farking amazing I've been on hold to Apple care for the best part of 30 minutes and have heard the same messages about 60 times and Sledgehammer by Peter Gabreil about 10 times.

Well, I just watched the first race of the motogp season - on the web.
It is 35 Euros for the year and you get all the European races live. I can only stream the low quality version, the high stutters too much. Having said that, the low quality version did drop out a few times, the real player stream seemed more reliable than the windows media player. Both lacked the ability to play in the player rather than embedded within the browser which was a pisser.
The over all experience was some what poor, but I think it will be worth it, while the quality is low, it is good enough. It also means I get to see most of the races live, which is the main thing. Also channel / network ( whatever they call themselves) 10 are only now starting to show the delayed coverage, so I wouldn't be getting to sleep till 2:30 or 3, not clever.
I'll give it a few more rounds before deciding whether it was worth it or not, however I'm leaning towards yes, while the quality is low, seeing it live is more important.

Ok they are both looking happier now.
You do wonder, Ok I do, if Charles sing God save my mum, and Philip sings god save my Bint.
Ok it is just me then, well ok.

*cough*

Go Charles! They love each other, what is stupid and very Hollywood is the fact they pissed around for 20 years before getting married.

He does look a touch bored with it all. I guess they are old, so have weathered a lot, I would have thought there would have been a touch more emotion.

Bugger it all I had thought I was over moving back to Europe. I'm back to being not so sure, it would be easier if you all moved here, the weather is good, and quite frankly no one will notice the odd extra european around.

baaaaaaa bring on the bloody 2 hour journey between Sydney and London, it would make it all so manageable. A nice weekend home in fact.

One again, travel is evil, if we all sat in the same bloody place we wouldn't have this dilemma would we.

No I'm not serious just confused and pissed off with everything not being simple.

Remember when you break up with someone it is important to keep perspective.
That is why I'm here with a picture on the wall of the view out of our flat in London, listening to Nick Cave drinking Scotch :).
Oh another note, I suggested clay pigeon shooting for a team building exercise to my manager and got a very strange look. Baaaa it's not like me and fire arms are a bad mix, there haven't been any accidents while I have been round then!
I thought it would have got us kudos from the head office, which is in Dallas, where one would assume not owning at least one fire arm gets a black mark against your name.

A Letter to the Java Technology Community. This is a good thing, having two technologies doing the same thing is silly as long the best of both worlds is used the outcome can only be good. A small thing, where is the fucking date, did no one at Sun ever get taught to date letters?

Panic is thinking you have left a candle burning at home, about four hours after getting to work :|. It turns out I hadn't, but by god it gave me the shits.
New place is going ok, now I have shit everywhere it is ok.

Well first night in the new place, it isn't Leicester Square is it, I was thinking that living on Oxford Street would give me the same night life, at least on a Friday night for @!#$@ sake. Look like I will have to settle for someone pissing on my door way. Oh also found a set of picture from circa 2001, Jesus we all look young and very white ( ok not Ash and Neela). Possilby pale would be a better term, Jesus aye. I'll sort scanning them and getting them erm up somewhere.

Country of fucking muppets, ok so not the whole country, but I do have your attention. Channel 10, the half wits that have coverage of the formula 1 - one are not showing it live and two are have a news break BEFORE the delayed coverage telling us about Mark Weber, now I managed to switch off before i found out what he did. But for fucks sake people do you read the last page of a book to your kids or yourself, do you play the last minutes of a fucking movie before showing it. No it's not hard, it's television you fucking morons. Fucking televisual back water, baaaaaaaa.

Rock on expose supports extra mouse buttons
I have a 5 button mouse and the expose functions linked to the extra buttons.

Well, I've started packed, so far only all my paper work, well paper work I have found so far, I know it will be everywhere. It's not going to badly at the moment, although I was only at it for about two and a half hours. We will see, currently talking Ricardo and listening to Jack Johnson who is playing in the park, when the wind changes he either gets louder or almost drops away to a whisper.
It would have been an amazing concert to go, ahh well, I guess I'm going to have to get used to that.

Ant what is your email address ? Mail me at my domain.

Here is some randomness that has been wandering through my head.


I want Bluetooth head phones to listen to my itunes

I want a Bluetooth ipod to transfer my music from my powerbook - not all of it, just the new albums I add or to change my iShuffle contents.( No i don't own one yet)

I want Bluetooth on my ipod to listen to music with my Bluetooth headphones.

I want a tuner on my ipod.

Old school IM is throwing a pad of post it notes round the office with your message on, if you want history - don't remove previous message. If a note comes off during flight, it's packet loss.

Office folk, cubical warriors brain storm. Do farmers grain storm ?

Why is there no bloody Bluetooth API for the Mac in any other language than C derivatives , say Java or even bloody python. Baaaa.

Another quick recap.
Japan was cold and not quite as weird as I remember, but still fun.
Opera in the Domain was very very hot and a lot of fun - Oh It was Tosca. Ummm Not sure what else has been happening.
Oh thats right I saw GT 4 ( Gran Turismo 4 in Japan, it's been out since the end of December. We have to wait till bloody March - grrrr. The breadth of games in Japan for the PS2 was a lot deeper than I have seen in either Oz or the UK.

ok I've almost given up trying to find time to blog about what I've been up to, so here is a concise version.

Been : Brisbane for a Wedding, home for Christmas, Rotorua for the weekend with Emma for a mud wrap.

Listening to: Edith Piaf and James Brown ( not to together )

Reading:
1) Test-Driven Development By Example - By Kent Beck.

Only about 1/3 of the way through it - excellent book, suggested to me by Cayne - well worth getting.

2) Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

Only about - ok not even through the prologue and already enjoying it.

Playing:

Killzone on the PS2, good game although, bugger me if a mouse and keyboard isn't a better way to play FPSs.

Seen:

We went to Cosi Fan Tutti at the Opera House. It was brilliant, must try and go see more opera.\
Work:

While trying no to jinx myself, all seems ok, some of the shine has worn off. But the immediate people I work with are still and excellent bunch and I'm still learning so all is well.

Thoughts for the New Year::

a) Learn a new language - spoken, not geek.

b) Go somewhere interesting.

c) Try and get to Java one.

So after a disaster there are always people asking for money, what I think is amazing is a couple of people handing over large wads of cash, Sandra Bullock has given a Million and Michael Schumacher 10 Million - Amazing. As usually musicians are talking about putting out another shite CD so people can buy it and the musicians don't have to give up any of there money - Bastards.
So go the Bullock and the Schumacher and up the musicians.