If you’re reading this, I am dead have successfully shifted to a new webserver. Go me. The wordpress exporter doesn’t grab any settings and when I re-uplourde the media, it doesn’t add to the library. It all still displays and works though, so.. good enough.
Mar 09 2010
is this thing on?
Feb 24 2010
average bun
Given that everyone seems to have a foodblog nowadays, I thought I’d give it a go. Unfortunately, the thing I decided to blog about is today’s breakfast. Oh well. It was a bacon and egg roll from the Mobil servo in Raglan, which is near Bathurst in countryside NSW. I was out there for reasons I cannot disclose. Anyway, I was on my way back and has missed breakfast at the motel due to setting the alarm for pm rather than am. Just one more reason I prefer 24 hour clocks. Anyway, after housekeeping woke me and I dropped into certain clients, I was on my way back in The Little Yaris That Could and came over all peckish like. So a servo it saw, and a B&E roll it was. I must say, the egg and bacon were tasty, fresh and cooked very nicely. The bun was merely a cheap hamburger bun, but it wasn’t sugarey like some. All in all, I was most satisfied by my repast. The coffee wasn’t bad either. 7/10.
So, I hear you pondering, what is The Little Yaris That Could? Why, it’s Ronan, my steed for the trip. Ronan is a Toyota Yaris 1.3 auto I hired from GoGet, a mob that both hire and name cars. It’s a car share thing, so it’s designed around people who sometimes need a car for an hour or two but don’t own one or occasionally need a second one. It’s very handy for me, given I fall into the first category. Unfortunately, poor Ronan isn’t terribly suited to driving through lumpy countyside at 100ish kph, what with a tiny engine and automatic gearbox. Still, we got there and back so I’m not complaining. The accelerator didn’t stick at all, for one thing…
Certain frogs can survive the experience of being frozen. These frogs make special proteins which prevent the formation of ice, so that they actually never freeze even though their body tempurature is below 0C. The water in them remains liquid: a phenomenon known as supercooling. If you disturb one of these frogs (just by touching them even), the water in them quickly freezes solid and they die.
Also you’re a bit of a bastard. Poor little froggy..
Feb 12 2010
hunting for the valley
Hey you! You look different.. have you had a hair cut? No? Well, whatever it is, you smell funny.
So on Tuesday, myself and the bossman decided to ride up to the Hunter Valley (wine country NSW) on our respective beasts. This is the route map.. not embeded to make it easier for you to zoom about and follow along at home. Got that going? Good, cos I’m going to point out a few things. Firstly we head north, and it’s all mostly boring until we get to where it splits.. except you get imagine me crouched over the handle bars, chin on the speedo, providing amusment at 80kph for anyone coming the other way. If I sit up, all I get is 75kph, see. Well, I could open it right up, but riding for hours at wide open throttle (that’s WOT to those of us in the know) isn’t a good idea. So 80% WOT it is. So anyway, it splits at Wiseman’s ferry, and on the way up we took the route to the west. The plan was to have lunch in St Albans, and that all went well. The route from the ferry (yes, there really is a ferry at Wiseman’s Ferry.. two even!) was rather fun, nice and twisty so I could lean off the bike ans scythe through the bends. At least, that’s what I was imagine myself doing. I’m sure it all ended up rather comical really. Still, after lunch is where things got a little.. rough. See, it looks like a main road on the map doesn’t it.. now a main road in country Australia doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wide… or well travelled.. or asphalt. It does usually mean that there’s some sort of maintenace routine for it though. From looking at the google maps street view and having ridden up it, it seems that the maintenance involved REMOVING the asphalt some time ago, then letting the rain wash away most of the surface. Not the most condusive surface for a leisurely bike ride, but not really a problem at all on a postie bike.. they were designed for trails after all. The bossman’s 125 scooter with 14″ wheels with smooth road tyres on the other hand… pretty damn awful. Unfortunately the first half of it was not so bad.. it wasn’t until the second half when we were going up hill that it got unbearable. Still, he soldiered on and we got out.. mostly unscathed. From then it was pretty uneventual.. then boring through Cessnock. That night, a few well deserved beers were consumed at the local irish pub.
Wednesday was wine tasting day. We hopped on a bus (ok, 10 seater van) and pootled out to a few different vineyards with mostly disappointing or uninspiring selections of wines. Except for Vinden Estate wines, with whom I signed up for a half dozen bottles to be sent every six months. Yum. All in all, it seems as a general rule I prefer South Australian reds to anything else. The rest of that afternoon was spent doing some work so we could claim this all as a work retreat. We were nearly productive!
The ride home was a little more considered than the ride up.. we considered going further west down Putty Rd, a well known route for motorbiklists out for a day’s ride, but the last/only fuel stop between us and there (in Broke) had no power, so we couldn’t fill up.. and we wouldn’t have made it to the next stop. Even with fill tanks we’d have been pushing it, so we decided to turn south towards Wollombi and head back down that way. On the road between Broke and Wollombi we saw the results of an accident, there were a couple of cars on the side of the road and some people in the grass off the other side giving CPR to a guy. His bike lay nearby. We stopped, as you do, but they said they had the situation under control.. as much as could be anyway. So, with nothing we could add, we headed on. This time we decided against going through St Albans for obvious reasons, instead going through Central Mangrove back to Wiseman’s Ferry. This ended being a good idea, as the road between those two is a nice peaceful jaunt along the river, very pleasent. From there it was home again home again, jiggady jig.
The beastie stood up to the rough treatment rather well, though I think it’s a little low on oil now. Not surprising really, given the workout it had. I think I’ll change it again anyway.. ’tis about time.
Dec 23 2009
sing for the coffee man
This morning I didn’t sleep enough, went to the airport earlier than I had to, bought an entirely forgettable cup of coffee and went on a plane. Or to put it another way…
I went to be last night happy in the knowledge that I had been tired all day, so was all set to get straight to sleep and be ready to start my time back home. Three hours later, I got to sleep. Two hours later I was woken by a strange keening sound.. I punched at it until it stopped, then realised that it was my mobile phone awakening me at the predetermined time I set it to in order to get me to the airport early enough to get through the no doubt wild and crazy crowds that would be there for a packed plane at this time of year. I got to the airport just before they started opening the check-in counters for the morning. I dropped my bag off and got to the security terminal just before they opened to let us through. I got to the gate about an hour before boarding. Turns out I could have slept another hour and evened out the trying to sleep/sleep disparity. Oh well..
Not too long after I got to the gate, I noticed the coffee place over there had their coffee machine warmed up and ready to go. Most of the lights were off, but they seemed operational so I headed over for a long black to start my long day. Turns out that the guy operating the machine gets in early for the early flights to supply us early morning passengers with an early cup of joe before embarking on our early morning trips purely because he can. He has no change in the register because they’re not officially opened yet so when I hand him some money he tells me what I owe him and gestures towards a bowl of change telling me to ‘go for it’. As I kick my brain into gear to calculate my change he prepares my morning repast (the coffee and a ham & cheese croissant) while completing the previous chap’s order and taking the next one. I sit and eat my croissant while listening to my ipod (same song you’re listening to) and waiting for my coffee to cool in a darkened corner of the cafe while watching the shuffling human morass start their day similarly to mine. We’re all up too early and trying to offset the sleepyness, seems some are more capable than others in making it happen.
I spend the next five hours in a wing’d beige tube of tedium listening to music and daring myself to get some sleep for the first time ever on a plane… I fail. Still, I’m back home.. ish.. for now. Hello family, hello friends, hello dogs. It’s/ll be good to see you again.
Nov 24 2009
one day
I will do this on my bike. Preferably with more meandering through national parks.
Oct 22 2009
have fun
Lately Volkswagen have been running an ad campaign called Fun Theory. They’re not actually selling any specific cars in this campaign, in fact they’re not mentioning any at all. What they’ve decided is that the world needs more fun, so they have teams of people out there putting a little exuberance into things. Case in point, they rigged up a set of stairs that run next to an escalator with piano keys, so wandering up and down the stairs becauses something new and exciting. The point of the whole thing is that they can change peoples behaviour in simple ways simply by changing something mundane into something a whole lotta fun.
They reckon that 66% more people used the stairs because of the change. I think it’s a great idea, I love that something so simple might make an otherwise dreary morning into a bright start to the day. They have another two similar videos, one is a bin that’s ‘bottomless’ and the other is a bottle recycling bin that’s been rigged up to be a game. I want something like that in the park near where I live here, it might stop the shits leaving their beer bottles lying around not 4 metres from a bin. Or they’ll be brutally vandalised… but hey, maybe they can see how much fun being targetted by a vigilante gang can be.
Ooof.. got a little dark there. Anyway, take a look at the other two – they can be found at the website for the campaign. They even have an award for a similar great idea, so get those minds cranking and see what you come up with. I’m not sure my vigilante gang will get through the selection process, but maybe you can more successful!
Sep 26 2009
proper job
Sometimes you gotta let the pros have a go..
.. but not completely.
All fits in rather nicely I thought…
Proper job!
Sep 24 2009
bodgetastic
There’s bodging to be done by the people who are still alive.
I made myself a new TV stand! Here is the old:
The keen-eyed amongst you may notice it’s the box that a toilet came in. A fresh, new, clean toilet, before you ask. A very sturdy box it is too I might add.. it assisted me well in the move to here. It’s still full of stuff that will now need rehoming, but that will happen shortly. This is indeed only the beginning! Bwahahaha!
Oh dear, I seem to have gone rather off topic. Anyway, my TV box has been bugging me for a while now so I ventured downstairs to see what was around that I might repurpose. Initially I was going to cut up the old table I had, but that would have required buying a saw.. normally I’d be well into buying new tools but I wanted to see how cheap I could do this. Turns out.. I did it for free! There was an old, slightly pinkish beige chest of drawers falling apart downstairs, so with a hammer and a couple of screwdrivers I assisted its breakdown, added a few other things I had lying around and came up with this:
Check it out! Admire the awesomeness of it all! Look slightly concerned about the fact that there’s no fastenings involved whatsoever! It’ll be fiiiine… probably. The two structual PC cases are empty, but the fancy looking one in the middle there is my TVPC. Basically it’s a DVD player.. unless I need an install of windows to break.
I should get a job in interior design…
I went for a ride today.. even tucked away as it was my bike was covered in the red dust from yesterday morning’s dust storm. I should probably clean off the mirrors at least before I go for the license test in a couple of weeks. That and practise the sort of stuff that’s required of me in the test anyway.
If there was an ocean big enough to hold Saturn, it would float.
There’s not an ocean around that can hold me, coppers!
Aug 24 2009
with nose
Greetings, salutations and furniture. Are you well? I am transposed. Barley!
I installed Windows 7 on my desktop a couple of weeks ago. It’s the full proper real technet version, so it’s not pirated and not going to expire and screw me up shortly. Which is nice. First impressions are pretty much positive.. it’s certainly a set up from Vista. Given I was one of the few geeks in the world to voluntarily use Vista over XP, (on both my laptop and desktop in fact!) I really appreciate the differences. The slightly revamped task bar is definately an improvement for one thing. I like being able to pin my constantly open apps to it for two reasons; it saves on quick launch bar space and they’re always in the same order. Being the pedantic fellow I am, it’s something I’ve been wanting for a while now. There’s a pile of little changes too that all add up to a big positive change in usability. If you’re dragging a window around and pull it to the edge of the screen it’ll automatically maximise. If you grab the task bar of a maximised window and pull it somewhere, it’ll restore (go to its smaller window size). There’s native support for shuffling the desktop background image. Admittedly these are somewhat minor given there’s been basically no changes to the core UI since Windows 95, but if we’re honest it’s always been a nicely functional design. The start menu is the same as it is in Vista and aesthetically there’s little difference. But again, that’s not really a bad thing – especially given all the customisation that’s possible for those who want it.
Under the shinyness the experience feels more smooth and solid. I’ve not done any comparative boot up timing or anything (I’m not that pedantic..) but it seems to be more efficient in what it’s doing. The UAC is far less invasive now, which is definately a welcome change. Pretty much all the screen darkening prompts that I come across are due to running software that was designed for XP or earlier – other items will have the shield on the button but pressing it won’t cause the disruptive UAC prompt we all know and revile. Most everything I’ve thrown at it will install and run however, though I was out and about getting the latest versions of things before I started. Drivers for pretty much everything were fine, except for my Logitech stuff – as of writing their drivers don’t recognise 7 as an operating system that they’ll run on. The keyboard one refuses to install and the mouse one offers to install anyway.. but I didn’t. Given the mouse stores the changes I made to the thumb buttons (who’da thunk it, the on board memory is useful!) it works better without the drivers anyway. I’d really like the media keys on my keyboard to be functional though..
The only other major quibble I have with 7 is that VLC doesn’t scale properly in it. Apparently this is due to the graphics card drivers not supporting under Win7 whatever scaling method that VLC uses.. so I just use WMP. There are other players out there that will work apparently, but WMP has been remarkably non-irritating so far. We’ll see how long that lasts.. but signs are promising. Certainly it’s less irritating than it was under Vista, and there’s now the option to completely remove it if you so desire. Things for MS to work on for the inevitable Win8 include seperate background controls for multiple monitors and not burying the keyboard controls so badly in the Control Panel. Also, for some reason the icons are wider spaced now.. both in the system tray and in Windows Explorer. Not sure why.. but it’s less good. Get on it, eh?
Sperm whales sleep vertically with their heads pointing towards the bottom of the ocean.
The bats of the sea!
Next Page »