Shazzan!

I never knew it was this popular

2005-03-18T11:07:00.000Z

Peter Fule might be interested in this, it's a 10th Anniversary Settlers of Catan set. Here are some pictures of it. I also noticed that CAPCOM have made a Settlers of Catan game for N-Gage, called (surprisingly) Catan. Seems it's also on the PS2.

Along with the anniversary Catan set I also saw that there's going to be a World of Warcraft board game, let's hope it's not actual like this.

Finally!

2006-11-05T02:16:00.000Z

I can solve a rubik's cube now. Not that I figured it out myself, I had to follow a guide, but still I'm happy. After a bit of practice I'll move on to some more puzzles. I've seen someone's puzzle collection and I almost want to get something like that as well.

Recently I was joking with my sister-in-law that I...

2006-07-25T01:24:00.000+01:00

Recently I was joking with my sister-in-law that I only blog when I buy something new. It seemed that way for a while, but unfortunately that's not true. It's coming up to 2 months without a new post and yet I'm surrounded by new purchases. Well strap yourselves in, this post has the makings of a short essay.

I'll start with the ERC camp I went on last week, since everything else is actually about stuff I've bought. I've been doing these camps for a while and I think I do quite well remembering everyone's name during the camp (there's normally about 60 people on camp and I usually know everyone by first name after a day or two). But the problem is after camp there are long breaks before seeing most people again, by which time I've forgotten a lot of names. Well no more! I've decided to start taking pictures of the other volunteers I meet (can't take pictures of the kids due to policies) so I can see them more often. That should cut down on the awkward "I remember you but don't know your name" parts of conversations. This camp I only got half the volunteers, but it's a start. Also along ERC news, the Annual Charity Ball is coming up which I'll be going to. It's a sort of dress up thing, this year the theme is Celebrities. Someone suggested I go as Aragon (Viggo Mortisen) since I'm looking a bit scruffy. Maybe it would work, my brother suggested Borimir (Sean Bean) though since I have a rounder face. And lastly maybe I should go as Brendan Fraser since I get a lot of comments about looking like him. I'm still undecided, suggestions are welcome.

I got myself a new phone about a month ago, nice little Sony Ericsson W810i walkman phone. All up it's pretty nice, but I was expecting a little more on the walkman side of things. I can't quickly create playlists (like selecting "Add to Now Playing") and editing saved playlists seems impossible. I seemed to have lost about half the storage on my 1GB Memory stick too, but I think a reformat will fix that. Apple updated iSync so that it works with the W810i a few weeks ago which I was very pleased about. I'm trying to synchronize my contacts, calendars and whatever else between my phone, laptop and gmail account. A little tricky but I'm getting there. The camera on the phone is 2 megapixel and seems to work well in bright light but low light has a lot of noise. While it might have been a little expensive (I bought it outright, don't really like these 24 month contracts) it is nice to have a phone/camera/walkman all in one. Maybe there will be some firmware updates to improve the walkman, but I'm not holding my breath.

Just after camp I also caved in and bought a digital SLR camera; the Canon EOS350D standard kit (comes with an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens, not USM). A little later I'll get some more lenses, but I think I've spent enough money lately. It takes very nice pictures and I'll bring it to volleyball next Saturday to take some action shots, compare them to the film ones I took. Of course I didn't have 1600 film for them, so it's probably an unfair comparison. The lens is a little slow for indoor sports, but that's common among zoom lenses. I have thought of getting a fixed lens just to get an f2 but I don't know what focal length it should be. I've played around with the camera over the weekend, took some night shots, pictures of the nephew and niece. There's a few that might warrant posting to Flikr, but I'll let you know if I put them up. But now I need to concentrate on getting my photography skills up so I can justify getting this great camera.

My other weekend purchase was a car. It seems I've shrugged off the biker image and joined the ranks of four wheeled automobile drivers. It will be a little sad to not have a bike anymore, but when I really thought about it I just couldn't justify getting another bike over a car. I had gotten all I wanted from my VTR250 and was about to upgrade to a larger bike, but common sense got the better of me it seems. Instead I friend was returning to Singapore and needed to sell his Toyota Celica. He was about to sell it to a dealer when I called him. It seems very much like Paul's MR2, except with 2 extra seats and probably less power. I got it pretty cheap but it does have some scratches and high kms, not so much as to make it a bad deal I think (I hope!). Now that I've been looking at it and other like it, I really like the idea of a '97+ Honda Prelude VTi-R but that would have been twice what I paid for this Celica. I might start saving and planning for the Honda, but I'm pretty happy with this Toyota for now.

My kettlebell collection has become rather well rounded with the recent arrival of a 24kg and a 16kg bell. The quality of the Australian Kettlebells seems to have improved from when I first bought one, the only downside being that the two 16kg kettlebells I have are slightly different shapes. Not a big deal since they're so light, but I'm sure it would make a difference in the 32kg size or maybe even the 24kg. I can do a lot more with the 32kg, including snatches and presses but it has highlighted my left shoulders weakness. I'll have to really work on my form as I have a slight tendency to "cheat" some of the presses. To fix that I'll go to a lighter weight and do slower and stricter press variations. I'm also thinking of cracking out the barbell and doing some deadlifts for a while to see if there's been any progression with that for me.

As for my volleyball, things are going alright but on a slight decline. After having last year off I returned very fresh and broke through my plateau. Now, playing for both Norwood and Flinders, I feel myself getting a little worn again. I think I should play only a little (if any) volleyball over the summer to give myself a good rest period. That way I can focus just on fitness over summer and really work on skills next year. My plyometrics hasn't gone anywhere yet because I had ordered some stupid things from the US but they hadn't arrived. I had given up on them and thought I'd send off a quick email to the company (JumpUSA.com) but didn't hold much hope for a response. Much to my surprise, the very next day they had refunded my money and told me that the order was probably lost. I've now ordered the same stuff but found they had an Australian distributor so it should be a lot less hassle.

Can't think of anything else just now, but I think I've rambled for quite long enough. I haven't even put in any links to stuff, maybe I'll come back and do that.

Some long term goals

2006-06-05T13:53:00.000+01:00

I plan to put this on a sidebar here, sort of a permanent Todo list. Earlier this year I thought I should focus a bit more on some things I'd like to achieve. Rest assured none of them are career related, but maybe that's a bad thing. Firstly I thought I'd lay off any martial art things for a while, namely my Tai Chi. Instead I was going to focus on Volleyball. I set in my mind that I want to play league before I'm 30, which gives me a few years. Of course it may never happen, but it will help me focus on playing better and getting better physically. Right now I have a vertical jump of around 60cm or 23.5 inches. I want to keep working on that until it's 40 inches (100 cm). Really I think an increase of just 3 to 6 inches will really improve my game, but 40" is the goal. I'm going to do some dedicated jump training of some kind (weights, plyometrics, or something similar) but that will probably have to wait until summer. For now I'm hoping my slow weight loss is helping me, and I hope my new kettlebell will help my slow weight loss.

Of course there's a lot of other things I'd put on that list. Go skiing. Learn to skate backwards. Hmm ... I'm sure there's more ... get more sleep, there's a good one.

A new addition

2006-06-03T05:27:00.000+01:00

I got my new kettlebell yesterday, take a look if you want. I already had a 16 kg (that's one pood) from a few years back so there's some shots with both of them to show the difference in size. By the way, the photos aren't great because I used my MacBook's built in iSight camera. Still, they turned out ok.

While I was in London I got a 25kg bell and got pretty used to that. Coming back to Australia I knew I wanted to get at least the same one again (it would have been too expensive to bring it back with me, so I gave it to Paul). I've also wanted to do some double kettlebell exercises so getting another 16kg was also on the cards. I decided to get the classic set of 16kg, 24kg and 32kg which would give me a wide variety of weights to use. Australian Kettlebells was the way to go so I made the order. They were out of the 16s and 24s which is why I've only got the 32. I'll have my full set in about a month or so but it'll be a while before I "tame" this thing anyway. Damn it's heavy! So it's back to swings and cleans until I build up enough strength to press and snatch it. I can two hand press and one hand push press or jerk so that'll let me do some negatives, etc. Maybe I'll be able to press it in a month or so.

This photo thing

2006-05-28T14:40:00.000+01:00

You know, I'm really beginning to regret having these post titles, it's just another thing I can't be bothered thinking up ... of course my rejigging of this blog hasn't eventuated either but that's par for the course.

I've finally scanned the photos I took last weekend, but I had to use a different computer to do it. The scanner just doesn't work well with Macs. Apparently scanners have been a recent addition to Mac OS X (I'm not sure about OS 9, but I think it's never been a big deal on Macs) which is really odd given the whole "graphic designers and artists use mac" stereotype. Perhaps it's just this particular scanner which was left out in the cold. VueScan can access the scanner, but it leaves an annoying watermark over the images unless you get a registered version. And the TWAIN SANE for Mac project proved fruitless for me. Just another incentive to get a digital camera which I'm desperately trying not to do. That Canon EOS 350D keeps looking very nice. The 30D looks even better, but it's another $1000. Maybe I can find a second hand 20D for less, that might be good. But really, the 350D has everything I'm looking for and would do me for many years to come.

I set up a Flickr account like Chloe. The 20Mb per month upload seems like it won't do me. Perhaps I'll just have to be very selective about which photos I upload. For now I've put up all 24 exposures I made, look at them here. Some are terrible, some are passable, and a few are downright terrible. I'd comment on some individually, but it's just a getting to know the camera photo shoot anyway. As I progress I might be in a better position to give a meaningful criticism

Google Maps Down Under

2006-05-25T07:05:00.000+01:00

Well it's not quite here yet, but just last week a friend told me that Google Maps had added street maps for Australia. Just like this one. It's a big step to getting our own maps.google.com.au. I used Google Maps a lot when I was in the UK, it has a really intuitive interface and it's very handy to be able to search for local businesses etc that are on Google Local.

Also, I've found this SNL Short very entertaining even if it is a bit old these days. This is alright too. (Grrr, google video version is out of sync. Go here instead)

Not quite what I had in mind

2006-05-21T15:12:00.000+01:00

I did want to do a bit more on the web site this weekend and now it's a little late on Sunday night. As far as the web site goes, I haven't done any more of the redesign. Mac OS X has Apache setup but I haven't gone down that track yet. iWeb lets you make some pages quickly but it's a little messy under the hood so I'm pretty sure I won't be using that much.

The Mac is going well in general, but there have been some little problems. Apple has a bit of a slogan, "It just works". Well if only that were true. I "crashed" the mac twice today. Maybe crashed is a harsh word, but if it was windows that totally locked up and I couldn't even use the task manager to kill an app then I'd say it crashed. Printing via a windows shared printer also caused major headaches. And finally, there seems to be no default scanning application, definitely not for this Acer/Benq S2W 3300U.

The last thing I'd like to say here is that I'm trying to learn more about photography. I'd really like to get a digital SLR camera but instead of spending heaps of money on something I can't get the hang of I thought I'd try out my Dad's old film SLR camera and see what comes of that first. It's pretty basic as far as SLR's go, but it'll give me a good idea of how to take photos without everything being done for me. It also has a good response time with the shutter release which will be good for what I'd really like to do which is taking action photos of sports things. My first roll is pretty poor to be honest, but I think it shows promise. I hope is shows promise. This guy is doing what I someday hope to be able to. Well maybe not the making a living from it part, I'm not totally delusional.

New Laptop

2006-05-18T14:33:00.000+01:00

Quick post for now. Got a new laptop. All good so far, but we'll see how I go in this unfamiliar territory

Stupid blogger image upload doesn't seem to like me. Click the link above for a big picture of my very own MacBook Pro. I'll get some better photos of it later.

Anyway, big plans for this site. I want to change the whole design, maybe even break away from using Blogger.com. At the very least I'd like to stop using a preset template for the design and come up with something of my own. Also, I want to add a few other pages that aren't necessarily blog related. So I'll do more stuff like that on the weekend, in between my volleyball and having Tommy and Oliver here :).

Yeah yeah, it's been a while

2006-02-10T00:54:00.000Z

Everybody has to go watch this video right now. It has some ultra funky stuff on this experimental touch screen, lots of Minority Report kind of actions (no holographic displays, but the interface is there).

Link from Applegeeks

Also posted this on Is My Blog Dead???

Heavens Above!

2005-12-24T00:13:00.000Z

Yet another mode of transport that I'm blogging from. If you haven't guessed from the title, I'm actually on an aeroplane. JAL flight JL402 to be exact, I believe it's a Boeing B777-300. The other day I was pleasently surprised to find out JAL offer broadband internet on selected flights. I looked at their timetables for scheduled internet flights and thought mine wouldn't have it, but I thought I'd ask anyway when I checked in. Just as an aside, I managed to sneak through check-in with nearly twice my allowed weight (I should only have 20kg, mine was 37! I think my main luggage was half a kilo under the maximum bag weight allowance of 32kg). So here I am now, all signed up with the in-flight Boeing internet called Connectix or something. The internet connection on the GNER train was a little tempromental, and slow. I'm hoping that since we're a lot closer to the satelitte here at 30000 feet that my pings and such will be much more acceptable

Not much to say really, spent my last week in London moving hotel rooms, buying presents, leaving them on trains, going to Lost Luggage offices, buying presents again. Of course, there was generous time spent on WoW too, but let's forget about that. If all goes to plan, I'll be home in time for a christmas lunch

On the move with a Mallard

2005-12-19T17:19:00.000Z

Once again posting from a train, this one however is a new GNER Mallard train with wireless internet onboard. I've spent the week in Glasgow with Damien and Annmarie where I found their roll-out futon strangely comfortable. Although I may have suffered some broadband withdrawal symptoms (more confirmation of why I don't like dial-up), it was very nice to spend some time with their family. I also managed a visit to a cousin, Derek O'Rourke (probably not the right spelling, I'll let the rest of my family correct me on that). While I spoke with him on the phone last Christmas, I couldn't put a face to the voice. That's probably because the only time I saw him was in Australia when I was about 10 or 12 and mainly what I remember of him was playing America's Cup and him standing on my head. His family speak both English and German and it's quite odd to listen to conversations where each person speaks in a different language, sort of like listening to someone else talk on a phone.

My bags are fully laden with things to bring back to Australia. I even bought another bag while I was in Glasgow, a messenger/satchel bag depending on where you're from. It fits my laptop nicely along with other things and it is also currently packed to the zipper. It seems as if when I bought the bag, my belongings suddenly grew to fill the extra luggage space. It's a slightly better carry-on luggage than my backpack as things are generally more accessible plus there's a little padding for the laptop, but I might still need both on the plane.

I went to a German market in Glasgow as well; they always have one around Christmas, apparently a German tradition. But since I could barely carry what I already owned, I couldn't pick up any little trinkets or toys which left me with the food to try. My first taste of Sauerkraut was not what I imagined it to be, but still quite nice. And just like the French markets, they sell excellent potatoes. In fact there's a tray of potatoes in my bag, wrapped in foil ... hopefully not leaking. I would have eaten them earlier (I'm about halfway to London), but there's three others at the table where I am. I always feel a bit weird eating when others aren't, especially in such intimate surroundings. They're off at Leeds which is just coming up, so I'll get to check the state of my taters then.

I've got a week left before I go, which I'll spend in a hotel I booked off of wotif.com. It's very handy; even though it's the first time I've used it. They seemed to have found me a better deal than lastminute.com could. So while I'm there I have to fix up my tax, deliver a present for Mum and make sure I get my plane. I'll be right next to Paddington station, so it should be a quick trip to Heathrow from there.

Leaving London

2005-12-14T09:27:00.000Z

Friday was my last day working for Ideaworks 3D. I was a bit sad to go since even though working on mobile phones wasn't to my taste at first, the people they have there are just amazing. Very brilliant programmers that can squeeze processing power out of those tiny little phones to get mobile games that didn't have any competition until the PSP came out.

Not only was Friday my last day at work, but it was also the last day of our lease. So the weekend was wholly taken up with packing, moving and cleaning. Paul did most of the moving since he had the car and it being an MR2 he had to fill the passenger seat as well to get a decent load. The cleaning took a little longer than I had hoped and I missed my (optimistic) 2pm train to Glasgow on Sunday. I was able to spend another night on the floor of Paul's new room and I had an infuriating time on the phone with Virgin trains trying to move my ticket to Monday (which I had apparently booked and paid for twice).

I had hoped that the Virgin train had internet during the journey but alas, it seems only GNER is offering that just now. If I book a train back to London, I'll be sure to try them out despite the terrible journey I had with overnight trains with them last time. So instead I'm offline and resorting to Word to type this post. It warms my heart to know that we're moving into a time where broadband internet is available most places including trains and planes. While it would still worry the security conscious, I'm sure that encrypted connections will come of age and satisfy their requirements too.

For those of you who don't know but are still checking my blog, I'm due to arrive back in Adelaide on Christmas Day. Even though I'm leaving a few things behind here, it will be a great relief to come back home and recharge. It'll be even better if I can continue working in the games industry and it will be a small miracle if I can stay in Adelaide whilst doing it. Here's hoping all my dreams come true.

State of Emergency

2005-07-07T15:02:00.000+01:00

In case you heard about the drama here in London, just thought I'd let you know that I'm alright. So is pretty much everyone else I know here. It's quite a terrible thing that happened, but even though I'm in the city where it happened I still feel like it's far away. Not quite sure why, maybe it's because I wasn't actually anywhere near where it happened (thanks to a sleepless night) or even know people who were. There will probably be quite a sense of uneasyness in London for a while, but life will go on. Thankfully the death toll seems to be quite low, most of the damage has been disruption.

Coming soon! S.T.A.R.S. and Umbrella

2005-06-28T00:23:00.000+01:00

I was going to wait a little longer before I posted anything, but when I saw this I just had to write something. For those of you who don't know, I'm referring to Resident Evil (you may have seen the movie). Yes zombie dogs may be upon us, but from what they say they won't be mindless. Actually they're not really zombie dogs, it's just a technique similar to cryogenics. It's very strange to say the least and even more scary is the thought of human trials that will inevitably come. I can see it being useful for emergency situations to increase the chance of survival, but to volunarily have your blood replaced with saline solution then swapped over again ... not for me. Kinda reminds me of Flatliners too.

Some time ago I was discussing with Damien and Annmarie about what I was thinking of doing when I got back to Australia. My main line of thinking is to try to maintain a position in the computer games industry by going to work for Ratbag (it'll be either console or PC work, so at least I'll be rid of mobile development). If that doesn't happen or I think I want to wash my hands of the industry I'd probably favour working for a company like Motorola, perhaps still in a simulation/emulation environment. But I did pass comment on going to China to be at a Shaolin Temple for a while. At the time it was just one of the many random thoughts that I have (like making games) but Damien seemed to think I had given it some real thought. I put it to the back of my mind like I do most of these whims until I was reading something on HowStuffWorks.com about the new batman movie. I bothered myself to actually look up if going to a Shaolin Temple is actually possible and what is involved. I found a site that detailed what foreigners could sign up for, typically with monthly fees. While I know that true shaolin kung fu is all but gone, this would be about as close as I would get to it. I don't think I'd do something like this for a year or more, but now that I look at it maybe 1-3 months sometime wouldn't be out of the question. It could be another one of those things I could cross off my list of things to do before I die. I don't have delussions of becoming a great master, especially in the span of 3 months, but it would definetly be an experience to talk about.

Kick ass Kung-fu

2005-06-25T00:27:00.000+01:00

Saw this on Slashdot. Looks cool, but I don't think we'll be seeing anything like this in the arcades for a while. Pity.

While you're at it, check out these guys. They seem to show case the fighting game, along with some other stuff. A very acrobatic troupe that's for sure

[Edit] It's not from Slashdot ... I can't remember where the hell I found this. Regardless, it's cool.

How time flies

2005-06-24T23:55:00.000+01:00

Supposedly it's only when you're having fun, but the past two weeks seem to have gone past quite quickly. One of the more interesting things (for me at least) was the quick drop of my bank balance, offset by the mysterious appearance of a laptop. Yes, I finally got around to getting myself a computer while I'm here. It's not an Alienware like I thought I'd like to get while I'm here (since they sell to Australian custormers directly now), instead it's a lowly Dell. Sort of brand new, it's from the Dell Outlet which is basically refurbished computers that have been returned because of order changes, etc. There may be more serious reasons for returning them, I guess I can't be sure of that, but the price is at 50% or less of their retail. Anyway, Dell was one of the few dealers that would sell a centrino laptop with something other than an Intel Extreme graphics chipset (read: sucky graphics). It'll do me for some time, and I think I could sell it off later in the year to recoup most of my money, maybe even all of it. You know what they say, there's one born every minute.

Last weekend while Paul and Chloe were in Edinburgh relaxing after being sent on business, Damien and Annmarie came down to Surrey for a course Annmarie wanted to attend. Damien invited me to meet up with them on Sunday since he had the whole day free waiting for Annmarie's course to finish. I happily took him up on his offer to spend the day with him, Willow and Gabriel at Portsmouth. It meant another early morning train trip, but I think I've got the hang of it now, no more missed trains for me! We managed to have great weather, just over 30 but with a cool breeze, probably because we were right by the water side. Reminded my a little of the Freemantle Doctor, not sure if it's as regular or as kind all the time though. There were plenty of boats to see, we only admired them from a far forgoing the £15 tour charges. Also another marvel of engineering was the Spinnaker Tower, a 170 metre tall observation tower. It wasn't completed yet (I think) but it definetly took on the apperance of its namesake. A glass elevator takes you to one of 4 observation decks, the top one being open to the elements. I wouldn't have minded going up there, another time perhaps. After picking up Annmarie and taking the "scenic" route back to their hotel we had dinner. The hotel showcased seafood from Loch Fyne, a scottish lake for those who aren't familiar with Lochs. I chose the whole sea bass with basil pesto and a side salad. It was really the first time I had a whole fish. All I can say is it's very fiddly and a lot more filling than I thought. Sea bass is quite nice though.

Work is going fine just now, System Rush will soon be on the shelves and I'm still working on the next project. With my own computer here I'm eager to practice programming here when I can find the time. At Ideaworks I've been cast as a network programmer. Most of the time I've been writing python scripts and sql queries, but I'm doing some actual C++ lately and I get to see a reasonably mature networking system. But still, I had my heart set on engine programming so I can tinker with that kind of stuff now. I was going to start a SourceForge project for my engine, but I figured I could do some ground work before entering any project management systems. I've made a user account with them but it may be a while before my project stars there.

Living with addiction

2005-06-03T18:07:00.000+01:00

Hi, my name's Joseph and I'm addicted to Sudoku.

I sort of came to this realisation when last night on the tube as I glanced over the discarded papers strewn around the carriage I saw a Su Doku puzzle. I then proceeded to pick up said newspaper and complete the puzzle, but I finished before I reached Ealing Broadway so I removed the book of Su Doku puzzles I now carry with me and started on yet another one. So within only a week or so of completing my first Su Doku, I now roam the carriages of the Underground looking for more puzzles. Of course the beginner puzzles don't do it for me any more, I have to find much more difficult ones to get any sort of buzz out of it. Soon I'll probably be sitting on the street, begging for money with a cardboard sign that says "Su Doku puzzles made me lose my job" ... and a 9x9 grid on the back so I can keep doing more puzzles.

There's been a lot that's happened in the 2 month posting sabbatical I had, probably too many to write just now (mainly because I can't remember them all). So I think over the next few days, if nothing interesting has happened I'll just try to remember something that I wanted to post ages ago. As it happens, not much has happened today so let me cast my mind back ... *dreamy music and fade to cloud effects*

Soon after I arrived back from Australia Paul was ready to buy a car. Being in a flat which has no official parking spot, I thought this would cause a little problem but for now there's an empty courtyard house behind us with an unused parking space which hasn't raised any eyebrows as yet. Strangely enough Paul wanted me to come and have a look at a car with him one weekend, I guess it was my vast mechanical knowledge and strong negotiation skills. It was a private sale and all the way over in Wokingham. There was a train station in a nearby village, but then we'd have to get from there to the actual house and back again. To save ourselves the trouble Paul decided to rent a car for the day. Trying to find a car rental office that was open on the weekend, well I wouldn't say it was difficult but it did mean we had a little journey to get there. This journey for us was made a fair bit longer when we realised that if someone lists their office in a borough, it's normally a good idea if it's actually in that borough. We got a tube to Park Royal, only to find that the lot was about 5km away. So catching a few buses left us with only a short walk, which is almost the only reason I'm telling this story. On the walk we passed a car that some gentleman was trying to sell. After making a quip about the method of selling, we noticed another car for sale parked right next it. Then another. And another. In fact there was about 20 cars all parked together with the same kind of for sale sign. It looked like a make shift used car lot, so much so that it even had a dodgy looking salesman there. The whole thing was a bit disturbing, we started to wonder if all these cars were supposed to be for sale, or if some hapless people had parked their cars there only to find a for sale sign on them when they came back. Needless to say, Paul will be avoiding parking there.

And I would have gotten away with it

2005-06-02T13:25:00.000+01:00

... if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their dog too!

Yes, another mystery was solved á la "Mystery, Inc.", but this time there were no men dressed up as ghosts and definitely no one yelling "Yikes","Zoiks" or "RELP!". But what were these mysterious mysteries I hear you ask.

Well there were actually two:

Why were my clothes not getting clean after being through the wash, and
Why were the cups still dirty after being in the dishwasher

We covered the basic checks of "Did I turn it on" and "Is it actually washing them" and they both passed. Clothes were wet and steam billowed out of the dishwasher after it had finished. My clothes problem I figured out a couple of days ago, or at least I think I have figured it out. My last two washes were actually done in stone cold water, I had left the temperature dial on 0°C so I don't think the washing liquid was dissolving or cleaning properly.

As for the other problem, it dawned on me this morning that a packet of tablets for the dishwasher probably shouldn't be referring to laundry in any way. So when I was thoroughly reading the packet to see if it contained salt (to prevent lime scale build-up, which seems to be a problem around here) I started to get suspicious when it said by not using this product you risk, amongst other things, having rough feeling laundry. So it seems that for the past couple of weeks we've been using laundry tablets to wash our dishes. At least it was using hot water unlike the washing machine ... maybe I should have put my clothes in the dish washer.

Mental note: Get proper dish washing tablets tonight

Back to Blender

2005-06-01T17:59:00.000+01:00

I always like playing with graphics applications, whether it's 2D (like Photoshop or The Gimp) or 3D (like 3DSMax) even though I'm not terribly good at using any of them. I'm not sure what it is that I find difficult, maybe it's just that I've never put in the time, and something about getting a clear image in my head of what it is I'd actually like to draw/model. But I remember a long time ago seeing a new 3D modelling program that was free, Blender. It lacked the visual pizzazz of other programs like Maya or Photoshop, but apparently it was a solid performer. Well it's gone through a few more revisions, its all open source (no registering for extra features like before) and at first glance looks quite good. What's even more fun is to look at the gallery on their site. There are some incredibly talented people out there, including this guy. I like the soft cartoonish feel to his work, makes me pine for some artistic ability. Just thought I'd share that with everyone.

My throat is rather sore, I think it had something to do with being violently ill over the weekend. I'm pretty sure it was the food from Falkirk, probably not a bug as I felt alright after the terrible moment had passed. I never like the thought that I'll have to throw up, so I sit in the bathroom for anywhere up to an hour waiting for the urge to go away, contemplating whether I should just get it over and done with so I can get to sleep again. This time around I think I hesitated for around 30 mins, so not my longest deliberation but still a fair amount of time at one o'clock in the morning. Since then I've had a scratchy voice and a little trouble swallowing, I guess the stomach acid burned my throat a bit. But it's getting better, looks like I won't lose my fantastic singing voice after all.

Not much else to say I guess, just thought I'd put down some thoughts before I knock off for the day. I doubt I'll be able to steal Paul's laptop in the evenings for a while with another person eager to use it. More incentive to get my own computer I guess. One of Paul's workmates had said he could get me a cheap P4, but it seems to have fallen through and I should get on with finding my own budget PC. The trip on the train has got me thinking it may be worth getting a laptop again, rather than a desktop, but my want for a good video card makes that a tough and/or expensive proposition. Of course I still have some other things to pay back before I can really consider anything like that, and it'll help once I figure out how I can actually claim back my tax from last year. All in good time, all in good time.

The long weekend

2005-05-31T22:44:00.000+01:00

It was the aptly named Spring Bank Holiday Weekend and to make up for the debarkle that happened last long weekend (the May Day Bank Holiday) I booked a trip up to Glasgow to visit Damien, Annmarie and their two kids. I couldn't find any flights to Glasgow that suited me (either they were too expensive or too early) so I chose to travel by train this time. I may have been slightly hasty doing the actual booking since I didn't notice that my trip up north was actually 3 connecting trains with over 3 hours waiting times at various stations. It was basically the worst journey I've ever had, about 11 hours (my train left at 11:30pm and met Damien et al in Edinburgh at around 10:30am) with virtually no sleep and not exactly pleasant fellow travelers for the most part.

All traveling stories aside, the weekend was quite nice, good to see Damien, Annmarie and the kids again. We had a couple of meals and on Sunday we went to see the Falkirk Wheel. It's a giant "boat lift" that's a replacement for a series of locks, essentially two giant baths that rotate to lower/raise boats to the canals that connect to it. Even better, the whole thing is almost completely sponsored by Irn Bru complete with an Irn Bru Fun park. The fun park is really just a regular playground, but the bins all look like Irn Bru cans, as do the enclosed slippery dips, and the rubber "won't hurt when you fall on it" ground is also made up with the Irn Bru logo. We even got some fresh air and exercise from the walk from the train station.

The trip back to London was quite a bit better, one continuous trip on a new fangled Virgin "tilting trains". I think Damien may have already told me this, but I was pleased to see that the trains have power points on it. They say they're only for laptops and mobile phones, but everyone makes good use of them. If they supplied broadband internet access as well I could very well travel everywhere by train. There's a flight company that gives broadband in the air, so I can't see why train companies couldn't offer it. Maybe in first class, but on trains first class isn't absurdly expensive as it is in air travel.

I've been playing around with MySQL a little for work, phpMyAdmin seems to be a very useful tool. I'm trying to find free web hosting that has php and MySQL so I can try out some things. I opened an account at SiteBurg.com, but I used a stylesheet to hide the banner ads which I think led them to shut down the site. My Internode webspace runs PHP, but not MySQL so it's not very useful just now. My interest in World of Warcraft has also shifted slightly to making a guild website and looking at the addons for it. The website for the administration side of it and the addons use an interesting language called Lua. It's a light weight language that I think is intended for third parties to build into other systems as an extension system.

Well I better go do some washing and get to sleep. Good night everyone.

Didn't work so well

2005-05-23T18:22:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately that didn't work so well. Since I'm a little obsessive about this kind of thing I've added in some links to the previous post that I wanted to try putting in the email. No, actually, I've changed my mind (like Mr Squiggle). I'll leave it intact for prosperity, but as you can see I can't add any html tags into the posts if I do it like that. Since I like the prolific use of links, I don't think I'll be doing the email posting very much. So here's a little errata to the previous post, mainly of funny little links I wanted to add:

new kid on the block
long
hmmm, not really much as far as errata's go

As I said before I've pretty much finished working on System Rush and have moved on to other projects. Now I'm on a mobile Java game project (not sure if I can mention it's name) but I think I might stick on the server side of this one a bit more than last time. What has been interesting is that I've used a JDE called Eclipse. It's very polished and even integrates with CVS, possibly other version control systems but that's the one we're using just now. Even though I'm not excited about programming in Java all that much, Eclipse is definitely a very nice tool to use. So if you're programming in Java, take a look at it. Peter, I'm looking in your direction ... but I think you may already be using it on that little laptop you had.

A new way to post

2005-05-23T18:03:00.000+01:00

Revolutionary! ... in a "been around for a long time" kind of way. I'm just testing out the blog-by-mail feature of blogger.com, if all goes well I can type posts while at work and look like I'm writing a big email to someone. Hopefully people will just assume it's work related, and if it's a really <em>long</em> post then it'll look like I've been doing lots of work! ^_^

On another note, there's a new kid on the block. Chloe has arrived here in the UK and has joined the herd with her own blog. I've even added it to my list of blogs on the sidebar there, you might also note that in an attempt to increase click through revenue I've moved the Affiliate Sites list higher up. I hope my link-ees will note this and adjust their donations accordingly. Soon I'll be able to live of this website, as long as I can keep moving the links section higher up the page.

Here's hoping the email-blogging doesn't screw anything up.

Joe

Back into the swing of things

2005-05-18T15:15:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, it's been 2 months to the day that I last posted anything. Much much longer than I had intended to leave it, there's so much that I wanted to write about that I've now forgotten it. It's kind of like when you see someone around but don't introduce yourself, you leave it for a while then soon enough you've seen this person everyday for a few months and you're past that point of introductions. A very awkward situation I can assure you.

My lame excuse for not posting anything is that work has been rather busy and my free time at home has been voluntarily taken up by World of Warcraft. We're about to get System Rush to release, in fact it's currently being shown at E3 in the Nokia stands but more on that later. Right now I'm just trying to break the seal and get back to some more regular posting. With that done now I'll get back to work.

Quick, everyone hide!

2005-03-15T18:20:00.000Z

Hello all. It's been a while since I last wrote anything, so I decided enough was enough and I better get something down. Come to think of it, I'm not sure there's been all that much to talk about, nothing I can remember anyway. All my attempts to get a computer have been fruitless and so I'm still using an unofficial scheduling system with my brother. It's basically "I wait for Paul to stop using his laptop, then I jump on to quickly check email, browse a few web pages then play World of Warcraft". The last item usually takes quite a long time to finish, and so writing blog entries hasn't got a look in for some time now.

Now for the bad news, I'm coming back to Australia for a while. In a possibly hasty decision making moment, I thought it would be nice to see the land down under around Easter. My cousin Emma is also having her wedding around this time and I was invited (if I was going to be in the country). Not wanting to miss out on stuff like that (I'm feeling compelled to go to friends/families weddings these days) it sealed the deal and I said I'd visit home for a couple of weeks. My flight from the UK to Australia is already covered since I originally bought a return ticket, but my return to the UK is a little trickier. I've now booked a one way ticket to London which is the best my budget will allow and everything seems in order. I'll be arriving in Adelaide on the 24th of March and leaving again on the 4th of April. I hope to catch up with everyone while I'm at home, and just in case people aren't reading this blog I'll even send out an email. That's all for now