It’s amazing the sorts of information that is available on the web. Sometimes it’s actually scary.
I was having a quick look for someone I haven’t been in contact for a while & didn’t even know whether they still lived in Adelaide. After typing the name in google and browsing the results for pages based in Australia, I could determine where they lived, which pub they drink at & that they had been overseas and still listened to a particular band.
I’ve searched for myself a couple of times & have been surprised at the kind of information that exists. Even searching for the name of this site brings up a couple of mentions on blog directories I’ve never subscribed to.
It just easy to see how the world is getting smaller day by day and that if anyone really wanted to stalk someone it’s really not that hard. The secret is to have a really common name that brings up millions of hits.
I’m joining a few web rings at the moment. It’s time someone got to see my handiwork. For the specific blog links, I’m sticking them to the side. For other miscellaneous webrings, they’ll appear in the diverse section.
One thing I need to do is sort out the site meter that’s attached to this particular page. It records different bits & pieces during the week & then sends me an email which is highly obscure in content.
The simple fact is, this web site has not cost me one solitary dollar to produce, host, etc. The space and web address is part of my internet account with senet & everything on the site is made by myself using demo programs and the like. I have thought about registering a domain name and having a bit more than 5 meg of web space, but I don’t know whether it’s worth it & why should I fork out for a domain address for something I thought of. Then again, maybe I’m just naïve and a tight-ass.
Finally found a Gripmaster & it certainly works the arm muscles! I need to be careful not to upset a wrist strain that I had when I first got my strat. The tendon in my left-hand pointer finger became painful over a couple of months, probably from playing copious hours of grand prix and pressing those keys as hard as possible to make it go quicker (p.s. pressing a keyboard hard does not make any difference to a game than pressing normally!). The result was simply not being able to play the axe much, but after taking some time off from jamming, I haven’t had further problems.
Anyway, the gripmaster seems to tighten the tendons which should be a good thing but I have felt a little bit of pain in the wrist again so I’ll take it easy.
I love the new song by “The Waifs” called “London Still”. Thankfully it’s getting some airplay on Triple J. The J’s play new music month’s before the commercial stations, so I’ll probably be sick of it once it hits the airwaves through other stations. However, until then, I think it is one of the better songs around & from a little three piece band as well!
It’s just good to hear a great song on the radio for a change. All these boy bands & britney spears clones (including Britney Spears) are taking songs manufactured to appeal to a juvenile market. Bloody hell…. Do I have to mention Shakira & her “mountains” line? I don’t know where the music industry is heading at the moment. Usually there’s a clear path that it follows through periods of rock, grunge, pop & dance, but at the moment it has lost it’s way, producing more than a fair share of crap.
Australia is slowly coming to it’s senses. Hopefully, we’ve seen the last incarnation of the “Popstars” telemockumentary, which is not a bad thing. There is still some great music around if prepared to hack away at the sludge that lies on the top of the music charts. Bands that write their own music from start to finish have a far higher ranking in my book, because they (hopefully) believe in what their writing and producing, rather than selling a set of lyrics for a quick profit to those who pump out music trying to further profit off a recent hit single.
Enough of my bitching. Now I need to find the EP from The Waifs, which doesn’t seem to be carried by very many stores at this stage.
One thing I promise not to do on this site is steal other people’s stuff. It doesn’t take long to look around a few sites & notice some clear similarities between two sites.
I brought this up because I just found a site with a bio of the person that seemed very familiar. I checked out the site I thought it came from & I was right. Darn near word for word except for a couple of additions.
I might be wrong, but creativity is something I strive for, to be different from other sites on the web. Sure, the basic elements of structure exist such as the about page & links, etc, but what is in those specific pages is all my own effort.
Excuse my minor attack on the individual who decided their personality exactly matched that of another web user, but I just find it almost insincere that they can’t create their own site without flogging ideas from those that have spent the time putting thought into their own creations.
Of all the movies I had no intention of seeing, Scooby-Doo was damn near top of the list. Anyway, that’s what I got to see & if you go into it with extremely low expectations you can’t be disappointed. However, I was surprised because it is actually a good, “cartoon brought to life” flick.
Matthew Lillard, who plays Shaggy, pulls of the look of the character as well as the braking voice. The rest of the cast do well but Shaggy steals the show. Everyone overacts in the film but that’s definitely part of the whole Scooby feel. The plot of the mystery is rather bizarre, but the character causing the mayhem gets his just desserts & I don’t know anyone who saw the cartoon series who wouldn’t like to see this character get caned. Well worth the effort & don’t listen to the critics!
I’m forever updating this site! The newest change is the “perspective area”, where all the photos no longer need to download at once. Instead they’ve been broken up into various categories.
The main problem has been the size of the images. They started in high quality, 1600 x 1200 at about 1 meg each, so being around 100k is fairly acceptable even though they take a while on a modem. Cutting back on quality for the sake of space is not my way of preparing this website. The whole idea of having a personal website is to present stuff that others may find interesting & appealing rather than seeing a half-arsed attempt with crappy looking photos & the like. It may be the case however, that photos may be removed after being up for a specified time since I have to maintain the entire site in a space limit of 5 meg.
I love looking at really well designed websites. I don’t think that a web site needs flash, java, etc to look professional. This site with the frames inside the browser could almost be declared overkill. The idea behind it was to present the page the same in all screen sizes but the restrictions of catering for 800 x 600 is not plausible especially where photos are in play.
Never-the-less, I’m sure there will be many changes to this site as time goes on. I’m still no html guru, so there will be errors every now & again, as I found the other day. I try to make sure that any updates work with everything else, but occasionally things go astray. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again… If anyone has any bright ideas that can be incorporated, give me a tingle.
Went to see the "Imposter" on the big screen last night. It was apparently released in America in around December last year, so it's taken a fair while to get here. I read a review that it was a flop & I can now understand why.
This is a no thought involved movie, with a simple plot & the big twist to the story in the final couple of minutes. Unfortunately, the big twist is all too obvious, but the bad guys, being the aliens, do win which is a bit novel.
I'll revise the last entry with my current placements: 61st in the state & 1058th in the country. Not exactly the top 300, so the spread of people just around the $50,000 mark must be huge!
Thankfully, I'm starting to make money in the stock exchange game. After being down to just under $49,000 at about midday, the worst stock I owned decided to announce that it was back on track with performance objectives and jumped the price up enough that I've finished the day $11 down from the original investment amount of $50,000. Going by the current rankings, that should put me in the top 60 in the state & possibly in the top 300 in the country!! I'll give the correct positions when they update the web site.
I admit that I’m no share trading guru, but I’m getting my ass severely kicked in the ASX sharemarket game. Out of about 400 odd people in South Australia playing I’m round the 170 mark which isn’t too bad. However in the country standings, I’m about 2,800 out of approx 5,000 players.
I’m taking the buy at the low, sell at the high approach, but each time I purchase the stock that’s fallen, it plummets further or doesn’t move. Either way, I lose money through brokerage, etc.
Thankfully, I’m playing with fictitious money. I don’t exactly have $50,000 to blow on trading. Anyway, I’ve still got until the end of July to make up the loses and win the competition, even though I think we both know, that ain’t gonna happen!
Visited the dreaded dentist after a period of what I thought was around two years. It turned out that the last time anyone poked & prodded my molars was way back in October 1998!
I’ve only ever had one tooth that needed extensive work. One of my upper front teeth died a number of years back & has been drilled, filled & bleached for all eternity.
Thankfully, this time around and after such a long time without maintenance, no probs exist. The whole dentist, poking around the mouth thing is quite a minor part of the whole dentist experience for me.
For my entire existence (as long as memories allow), I’ve always had the same dentist work on my teeth in the same room, in the same building & what seems to be the same time at night. They’ve changed the seating arrangement in the waiting room a few times & the picture on the roof above the dentist chair to keep patients’ minds on other things, but apart from these, nothing has altered in the decades past. The same art project of an old tank which has been adapted from a photo into an post modern painting still remains, as do the staff manning the reception counter, albeit the occasional new dental assistant.
There is an amazing photo to one side of the reception area which was hung about ten years ago. It has always fascinated me. It’s simply a tree in a paddock with grey skies behind & my parents & sister hate it, but the clarity draws me in and gives a level of depth and presence I have rarely seen.
It’s more than just a photo though. Even though it’s one of the newest placements within the clinic, it gives me some bizarre comfort to know that certain specific items will still remain & I imagine that if it ever disappears, I’ll be asking to find out where it’s gone. I suppose it’s some sort of symbolism for my time going to this one dentist for so many years. Maybe it’s what has fueled my endeavor to capture the same sorts of images & present them on this site.
Finally, a bit of nice weather has crawled over the horizon, and we’re now flanked in blue skies. It has a bit of a spring feel even though it’s still in the first third of winter.
I’m not a promoter of cold weather. There’s nothing worse than getting into a cold bed at night or getting out of a warm bed in the morning to a freezing house.
Playing the guitar is darn near impossible due to cold fingers. I’ve tried searching for a Gripmaster which might give some help, but so far I can’t find any sports store which stocks them. I know the music store from which I bought my amp, has them, but it’s the other side of the city and about an hour long drive.
The amp is also feeling the cold. The valves have a bit of scream as they warm up and evaporate any condensation. Bring on Summer!
Who would have thought the humble jelly bean would carry such devilish intent.
After the rush of last week, this week has been as rather lax. Young Will & myself have been walking around aimlessly looking for stuff to do when it eventually gets to the point that any topic, no matter how crap, becomes interesting conversation.
Looking busy when bored is one method of avoiding the intent glares of a boss willing to lighten his/her personal workload. However, not looking busy when bored is one sure way to obtain work in quantities far greater than amount required to alleviate boredom.
In the case of myself, I have been training in the art of looking busy for years now & once the techniques are learnt, will pay off in spades.
However, for young Will, these techniques still need to be developed. Looking through the confectionery lines carried by one of our suppliers & then discussing out load the proposal of purchasing bulk quantities of Jelly Beans for office consumption does not generally carry the impression of hard-core productive work being performed.
Thus, young Will now has the pleasure of taking over the entering of all players score cards each week, for probably the rest of her working career.
I?ve turned my aching back on those poor saps that still use 800 x 600 to view web pages. It?s either time for these people to obtain some funds for a new viewing console that can handle 1024 x 768 or seeing their optometrist.
To those individuals facing this dilemma, I?m sorry, but dammit, times are a changing.
Check out the "perspective" area & you'll see why I'm not happy. Spent all this time updating the area to show a whole heap of images in a stylish way & well, i buggered it.
For the benefit of those people who have screens of only 800 x 600, I meticulously checked & rechecked the areas I was working with to ensure no extra scroll bars or formatting errors would appear.
Because of all this planning, the images I've formatted can't be seen in their entirety in the scroll box. I'll fix it..... Just give me a bit of time!
Okay, so I haven?t got anything to post for last week. I?ve been busy doing end of month reports for the club & after looking at a computer screen all day means I?m not too fond of destroying my eyesight further by going home and staring at one for a few more hours. Basically, I?m lazy!
However, I did get to take a walk through Chamber?s Gully, which is near to Waterfall Gully. Waterfall Gully was packed out with cars, so my normal walk to the top of Mt Lofty was not an option.
Chamber?s Gully is another set of trails at the base of Mt Lofty which are spectacular. I took a stack of photos which I?ll post a few of soon.
I’m looking to add a Wap section to this site. Why? Well, just for something to do really. I haven’t mastered HTML in any way, shape or form but since I have a Wap enabled phone, I thought it would be good to start my own portal from which I could access the best Wap pages. I think I’ve found a WML test program in which to write it and I’ll play around with it this weekend.
Winter is definitely getting a foot hold this week. The novelty of crawling out from under the doona into what feels like below zero temperatures wore off real quick.
Thankfully the heater in my car boots into action after only a few minutes, making the drive to work far more tolerable, though it does make it a bit too cosy. One day I’ll find myself waking in the middle of a pile up caused by drifting back to noddy land.
Getting into work for the last couple of days, I’ve found the air-conditioner has been left on overnight. Not good for the power bills, but since it’s warm inside I’m not complaining.
However, Karen from catering called me down to the dining room, which is to set the scene, surrounded by 8x8 foot windows facing the Adelaide hills. This glass is obviously impervious to the morning sun, because it was one step away from finding frost on the carpet. I can’t remember a room anywhere being that cold.
Wrigley’s have sure invested a whole lot of money sending out two samples of their new chewing gums to what seems to be the whole of Adelaide. I think that most of the local population this week is chewing, bogan like, with mouths open. It may have people munching on their product, but whether many will actually go out & buy their stuff is a long shot!
Well, the World Trade Centre site is finally cleared & an amazing part of history has been brought to a partial close. The reminder is now what isn’t there, which would be eerie for all New Yorkers.
For all those lucky Yanks, Neil Finn’s album “One All” has been released. Our southern continent has had the earlier version “One Nil” since early 2001, which has led most of his US fans importing the album. Neil has changed the title of the album so there could be some changes to its contents consisting of a few remixes & a couple of new songs.
By the reviews so far, most people like the changes but there are still some who nit-pick about how the songs have been put together, instruments used, etc.
Being a NF fan and hearing most of the gear he’s written and his live versions, I love the way he’s able to alter and provide new views of songs. One such song is Private Universe which has been released twice, albeit very differently with one heavy & one acoustic arrangement. There is always the experimentation going on which can only lead to more inventive future works.
I admit, there is a few pieces that NF has delivered which aren’t my cup of tea. “Not the girl you think you are” is one of those songs, but it has taken time in the past for others to grow on me, such as “Distant Sun” which took a few years but it’s now a favourite.
Neil wasn’t overly happy with One Nil when it came out which is why it was released fresh in the US. I’ll reserve judgement until I run my ears past it!
By the number of sell-out shows he’s doing over July, it can’t be all that bad!
Missed going to see Resident Evil last night. For the past few months, a group from my sister’s theatre company has been getting together and seeing flicks on Tight-ass-Tuesday. The only problem for me is actually getting there.
They seem to find the earliest screening times after 5pm which makes me think that I am the only one with a full-time gig and the rest are dole-bludgers, who knows!
Looked like a good in-your-face flick as well. Bugger!
Bit of a nothing day today. Feeling a little off colour but it doesn’t feel as though it will progress into anything bad.
For the last couple of days, I’ve been weirdly contented with everything as though life is heading along the right track, but today I feel a little bit of trepidation & have no idea why!
Got home & watched the 86th running of the Indianapolis 500.
This is one motor racing event that I have followed since Rick Mear’s victory in 1991, which was the year I first discovered that the CART (formerly Indycar) series really does put Formula 1 to shame.
Before this time, I had always heard about the bizarre high speeds that people raced at & the high carnage rates of both spectators & drivers.
These days the speeds are still increasing but safety too has reached a new level, with new turn barriers for the 2002 event. Thankfully, they do a good job as proven during this month of May on many occasions.
Any way, this year’s winner is Paul Tracy….. from the way I see it. Sure Helio did well all day, but if those back-markers didn’t smack the concrete on lap 199, he wouldn’t have made it to the end due to a shortage of fuel. Normally I would argue against appealing a result, but the circumstances and glaring evidence should have been enough to alter the official placings. I think we have seen another rift in the CART & IRL factions, which also featured in the result. It would be rather difficult to promote the biggest IRL event when an opposing CART driver takes the title.
Paul has shown sportsmanship in accepting second place, working his way to the front after starting at the distant end of the field. It was an incredible effort & his talent has not been unnoticed.
So they are going to kick out two housemates on Sunday night. No surprises there. I found out the info early yesterday via the web, but how do people work out exactly what’s going to happen in Big Brother before it is announced?
BB’s ratings have been on the slide in the last week or so. This should spice it up with everyone up for eviction. However, a few strategies have definitely gone out the window. I predict that Pete & hopefully Jess get the boot!
Spent the first few hours of the working week trying to update MYOB from version 11 to 12. Simple in concept unless there has been a virus that prevents the installation of new programs. Norton can’t find the virus code and the various fixes that have been put on the net don’t do squat.
Therefore every now & again, turning on the computer resulted in it turning off part way through the startup sequence. To get into the system required a file to be deleted from windows under DOS mode. Not exactly the wisest thing to do when dealing with windows, but no harm done yet.
Solved the problem after changing various files around, but we do know it attaches itself to I.P addresses to duplicate, so I’ll have to remember the method to sort out all the other computers it infects.
Since the folks were away for Thursday & Friday night last week and that I didn’t get home before the sunset, poor little Maggie wasn’t able to grab a meal from the back door bistro. Thankfully he is able to fend for himself, but it certainly put him in a bad mood on Saturday.
The turned up at the door with his mouth open and the first bit of mince he took off my hand can only be described as a snatch. He obviously wasn’t too impressed but soon settled down. This bird sure has a big personality.
