Archive for March, 2002

Merry Easter and all that

Merry Easter and all that to everyone. Today marks the 2002nd anniversary of perhaps the greatest ‘houdini’ trick of them all. Onya Jeez!

Today has been one of those days. I picked up a close friend from the airport at 3am this morning and had a beer and sushi breakfast. Not the ideal culinary combination I suppose, but I enjoyed it. I slept for half the day thn made the obligatory interstate phonecalls. You know the score - the parents, aunts etc.

The highlight of this afternoon was two games of pool with eminent blogger, Graham Freeman (virulent memes). The score was one game all before I had to run off and pick up some furniture for my house. I regret not being able to stay longer and mix a little more with some of the other bloggers and defeat Graham in a best of three pool competition. At least Graham got to flex the digital muscles of his new camera with my flying visit. Expect my ugly mug popping up somewhere on his site sooner or later. Don’t do it Graham, your visitor numbers will plummet.

Well, the football has started

Well, the football has started for another year. Richmond won, but not very convincingly. I have followed these bastards for 23 years now and I’m afraid to say I’m getting a little sick of the ’slick’ national competition. I think I’ll populate the outer at more VFL games than AFL games this year. Go local.

After 10 months I have finally got the gallery section starting to appear respectable. Over the next two months all sorts of weird and whacky photos are going to appear. Honestly, I have two BIG boxes full of photos and I’d love to have them all up online. It’ll take too long to scan them and too much room on my host’s servers though. Only have 10MB you see. Might have to look around for a better deal methinks.

While looking through old photos I found several of me with a real bad mullet (circa 1990). I’m not too sure if I should make them public. Luckily I let my hair grow into an Eddie Vedder bob by the mid-nineties. Sheesh! Now I just have the boring old ‘K-Mart catalogue male model’ haircut. Pretty cool if you ask me.

"Britney Spears is from Lousiana, you know."

"Really? Which part?"

"All of her."

Boom.Boom. (via bloody hell)

When you are learning a

When you are learning a new language the basics of speech and grammar are hard to compehend, especially when the age of 30 is approaching like a scania. Tonight something clicked while I was completing exercise after exercise in a crappy, second hand Spanish grammar text I found in a Collingwood second hand bookstore. The use of the preterite and imperfect has been enabled in my sometimes feeble brain. Shit. I’m talking in tounges. Someone call the Herald-Sun!

Andersen are rooted. It’s a pity that doesn’t mean fewer accountants.(apologies to those of you who happen to be plague locusts, I mean, accountants).

I just realised. For the past 6 years I haven’t had any grandparents. No wonder the house isn’t full of salt and pepper shakers, homemade photo frames and knitted quilt thingies. You see, I’m running out of handkerchiefs (chieves). Normally the grannies gave me some hankies and a set of salt and papper shakers (made out of a camel’s scrotum or something strange like that) for my birthday each year. I miss grandparents.

When you’re down, all you need is a kick in the guts. Those poor Afghanis. Decades of war, earthquakes, drought and television smuggling must surely make you think that there is no god worth worshipping.

After 4 hours at Uni

After 4 hours at Uni and 4½ hours getting my head around some of the content of the lectures I am rooted. Nothing more to say as I have 5 and a bit hours until I have to get up for work again. Grrrumph.

If anyone feels like joining an AFL tipping competition go to this AFL tipping site and see if you can bothered registering. My competition is named TIPS FROM THE HIPS. Good luck! By the way, the winner at the end of the season gets a CD of their choice plus a slab/carton of Australian Beer (or another CD if you’re a non-drinker) delivered to their place of abode (Aussie residents only).

My virtual model. Haa! There

My
virtual model. Haa! There was no checkbox for ‘gorilla chest’
or ‘pair of socks in the briefs.’ Nor was there a selector for ‘t-shirt
tan.’ These guys are going to have to realease a version for average
people like me. Virtual model indeed!

Last Tuesday the Spanish PM

Last Tuesday the Spanish PM swore after he finished a speech at the EU parliament in Brussels. The BBC reported it as follows -

The unfortunate Spanish leader seemed to think his microphone was turned off when he assessed his speech.”What nonsense I have just come out with,”; Mr Aznar said.

“What a load of bullshit I’ve just pulled off” was the direct translation of his comments. Why must our news be sanatised?

Somehow I can feel the tide turning with the mandatory detention issue. About 30 000 people marched in Melbourne today against Howard’s Way. Recently I had an argument about the issue with a close friend, which surprised me somewhat. It is not a cut-and-dry issue is it. Whether one is critical or supportive of our government’s present policies, one thing is for sure. While global inequity exists, the movement of people will continue unabated, as it has throughout entire human history.

This guy takes eggs seriously. Check out his network diagram in particular.

It’s 10pm as a write this. Just woke up. At around 6 I had a nice roast lamb dinner and lay on the floor to watch the cricket in South Africa. Next thing I knew it was ½ past nine. It was a good nap but now I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Bugger.

Thanks for the enquiries about the little countdown going on to the right of the screen. I will unveil the mystery next Sunday.

I’ve had a few people

I’ve had a few people ask me about how to input special characters. It’s pretty basic really. Here’s a page that could help you out a little.

My cricket club lost it’s Grand Final by only 13 runs. I came home so I didn’t drown my sorrows too much. It looks like it’ll be a long night for a few cricketers around Richmond.

Google, as well as being pro-scientology, has lost the plot even more by having a Klingon language interface. It’s time to for me to use another search engine I think.

Normally when I see old

Normally when I see old bands (from my teenage years or early twenties) coming back I wince and curse for at least 2 hours. The Breeders are back. I didn’t wince. I didn’t curse. I hope they don’t screw up the good work they did in the early 90’s.

At the Big Day Out on the Gold Coast in 1994 (I think) I got absolutely pissed early in the day and slept to the right of the stage in a pool of well stirred up mud. I must have been out of it for 2 hours or so and awoke to The Breeders singing Last Splash. I stood up, covered in mud with my 5 remaining cans of warm VB attached to my wrist via the plastic six-pack holder. The song ended and Kelly Deal looked my way and said, "’wow guys, the beast has stirred. Give the fucker a round of applause." The band laughed into their mikes, the crowed looked at me and cheered. I bowed. I thought I was soooo cool. Apparently after every song they played before I woke up, I was being commented upon for sleeping in a pile of mud with 5 beers chained to my wrist. Looking back, I wasn’t really very cool. But at least I enjoyed the moment.

A note to myself. If you were here in my living room, you’d know why.

See. I told you so. Now that I have a decent image editor, pointless graphics are going to be popping up everywhere. Today’s favourite tool is crop.

I prefer a two week old newspaper myself.

I found this site on cruel.com. Seeing as Melbourne is being invaded by Starbucks, I may as well attempt to dissuade my Melbourne readers from visiting such shitty coffee drinking venues. I’m no idealist, but a world without homogenous consumption venues would be nice. Originality and creativity it seems, cannot compete with the harmony that a mass-marketed name presents.

The blog is indeed being considered a corporate tool of the future. Probably not a bad thing - as long as people feel safe to say what they really think. Which can be very dangerous.

Yesh. I have a long

Yesh. I have a long way to go before I start producing quality graphics. My best friend last night was the cloning tool as you can see. Bloody horse’s mouths everywhere. Thank god for ED. software prices.

The oldest known photo in the world (1825) goes on sale in Paris today. I always thought photography was a late 19th century invention. You learn something new everyday ‘eh!

An article in today’s Guardian caught my eye.

"This sort of experience suggests that the majority of web designers simply don’t have a clue about usability. It is like watching the early days in the development of flying machines. Well, first you design something that looks good - probably something that looks a lot like a bird. Then you try to fly, by jumping off a cliff."

Keep It Simple Stupid.

On a parting note -

OK. I’ve moved house. I’ve

OK. I’ve moved house. I’ve been here around 3 weeks now but can’t remember much of it. Met the neighbours on one side - a lovely retired Greek couple. Well, Australians of Greek background anyway. They’re nosy, always saying hello and always asking why I live by myself. That’s OK. At least I know if someone breaks in they’ll know exactly what was taken. The neighbours on the other side are a little more mysterious. They have children - I’ve heard them scream (sounds dodgy) but haven’t seen them. They have two black cars. A brand new shiny Ford Falcon for him and a brand new big fucking 4WD for her. Both vehicles have personalised plates along the lines of ESSFC blah blah blah. Essendon fans. I don’t want to talk to them.

Northcote is a nice suburb. But that’s just it. After living in Richmond and Clifton Hill everything’s a little to suburban for me. I’m sure I’ll adjust as High St. isn’t far away. There’s a plethora of food for me to sample down there as well as plenty of Grandma/Grandpa shops. You know the sort. A teapot shop. A washing machine repair joint that specialises in fridges. A cafe that doesn’t sell food - just coffee. A shop that sells only cane baskets and of course, a two dollar shop.

Another thing - there seems to be lots of dickheads driving hotted up cars around here. Not down my street but just around and about. What a difference a one kilometere move makes. Phew! Haven’t seen this many Commode Doors since I left Brisbane in 1996.

Embarrasing online web confessions (via plasticbag). When I was very young, around 4 or 5 years old, I thought that if you went to the toilet and did number 1’s and 2’s together a HUGE explosion could be the result. So I completed each mission separately. Do you know how hard that was? Don’t ask me why I thought this. By the way, the explosion myth only lasted a few months. I don’t worry about it that much anymore. Although at times I get caught chuckling in a cubicle at work.

Well, I finally have some

Well, I finally have some image editing software after 18 months of waiting. Photoshop and Illustrator. So get ready for some horrific looking graphics popping up all over the place.

I voted Green for the first time on Saturday in Victoria’s local
elections. Obviously I wasn’t alone in my municipality. Five
of the nine councillors are now Greens!

One thing that is bugging

One thing that is bugging me lately is the increased surveillance people are coming under by governments and semi-government bodies. Yeah sure, call me paranoid but crap like this and this should never happen in a country like Australia. It seems governments are seeking protection from their own citizens. So who’s paranoid then?

Yesterdays cricket action was entertaining to say the least. My club, Richmond Union, got the opposition (East Malvern) all out for 159 late on the first day. A good effort seeing as all East Malvern had to do was see out the day and face 80 overs. Our lads came in to bat and lost 3 early wickets. We ended up on 3/20 after 20 or so overs. Another 80 overs to face next week and we could have our first premiership for years.