To Sydney and back

We're all back from our mini-holiday safe and sound. It was really great to have everyone in the family together for the first time even if there were a few concerns about how we'd behave after being crammed together for such an extended period. I for one thought things went exceptionally well and would love for everyone to meet up more often. James, Dora and Barbara really outdid themselves as hosts which made Christmas something special.



This was the first time Alison and I had seen their classy apartment in Surry Hills so our eyes flicked rapidly around the room as we noted their tasteful furnishings, seasonal decorations and Dora's majestic grand piano perched overlooking a wonderful view of downtown Sydney all the way up to the Blue Mountains. I'll admit that I might have tried a little too hard to pass subtle hints and winks in Alison's direction as I salivated in front of Dora's new collector's edition version of Bill Watterson's complete works (the author of Calvin and Hobbes). Not long after taking our seats to admire the view and enjoy the twin air-conditioners (It was 38 degrees in Sydney that day) we were soon offered a wide assortment of snacks and dip that would preclude a gastronomical extravaganza over the next few days. Sad to say that due to time constraints we did not get the chance to venture down to the fish markets to sample my beloved sea urchin but I think we managed to make up for it in the end.



The huge turkey thankfully survived a trip in the eskie during the long drive down from Brisbane with John, Sheena and mum. The logisitics of cooking Christmas dinner in two kitchens was certainly interesting with much ferrying of fowl and produce between the apartments on the 10th and 15th floor. Stuffed turkey, ham, perfectly roasted potatoes (I challenge any child to spend time in England and not develop an unhealthy relationship with oily spuds), peas, corn, cranberry sauce and a drizzle of gravy made for a very enjoyable meal on the eve. Somehow even after all that we still managed to find room for some Christmas pudding, mudcake, white christmas, rum balls and cheese in our distended bellies. Oh gluttony.



As you can imagine we retired for the night quite satisfied if perhaps a little uncomfortable to wait patiently for Santa to drop our loot under the tree. We must have been exceptionally good this year given the unabashed display of consumerism to be found the next morning under the little tree. Remember that all this is just for eight people.



Some of the presents didn't fare too well on the sleigh ride from Brisbane to Sydney. John's was in a particularly sad state by the time it ended up in his hands.



It'd take too long to list all the loot uncovered so I'll just share what Alison and I gave each other (since we're such thoughtful partners). Here's a picture of Alison reading a little brochure I made up for our upcoming trip to the Sunshine Coast. We'll be leaving on the 6th of January to spend the weekend there for her birthday and hopefully she'll bring the sandcastle building kit I included in her present.



I got a little package of goodies from Alsie too which included Neil Gaiman's latest book "Anansi Boys" and wait for it... the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th DVD box sets of Voltron! The cool one with five lions, not the shitty other one with the cars. Now that's a blast from the past I can use to relive my childhood. The first DVD box set wasn't in stock at the time so we'll just have to wait for it to come in so that we can start watching it all.

After shredding and discarding a mountain of wrapping paper we all sat down for another exercise in overindulgence. Heaps of fresh prawns, potato and egg salad, baby cheeses with cherry tomatoes along with healthy slabs of ham and mango proved to be absolutely delightful for Christmas lunch. We wolfed all this down while praising Dora and Barbara's fine efforts in presenting the wonderful spread.


Time flew by after that with a round of Cranium (that Alison and I narrowly won). Most of us spent boxing day morning chatting over a sluggish but enjoyable game of monopoly that helped to kill the time before our trip out on the ferry to Manly. Dora and I both brought our cameras with the hope of snapping some pictures and I think we got quite a few of Harbour bridge, overcrowded beaches and the Opera house. It was a nice coincidence that both of us somehow bought the same camera (EOS 350D) around the same time on the same package deal so we had lots to discuss and compare. Alison and I decided sponsored Dora for a pro Flickr account for her graduation present so I helped set this up for her while we where there. Hope to see lots of nice pictures from you soon Dora. :)

Before we knew it, we had to be packed up to head to the airport for our flight. Still managed one last assault on the waist line with yum cha down at China town. We were lucky enough to get Sheena to join us so it was a treat to point out the different dishes to her and make suggestions on what she should try. We then said our goodbyes and were transported to the domestic terminal to conclude our visit.

Just like to thank James, Dora and Barbara for a terrific time and for welcoming us into their home. A big hug and thanks to John and Sheena for bringing all the family together. Wish every Christmas could be just like this.

Merry Christmas

Well we've just heard that mum, John and Sheena have thankfully survived the drive down to Sydney and are happily settled into the rented apartment. Alison and I will be waking up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to fly down to join everyone there so I probably won't be writing another post until we get back to Brissie on Tuesday.

I just can't wait to head down to the Sydney fish market to get my sea urchin. Fresh strips of seaweed, a container of hot steamed white rice and decadent slabs of uni (sea urchin). Highly recommended if you don't have a cholestrol problem and don't mind trying out what I like to call the "fat of the sea".

For anyone reading this during the holiday period we'd just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope Santa didn't dissapoint this year.

Tis the season to be jolly

Just floating through the pre-Christmas period at the moment. We all ended up being disgustingly prepared this year so all our parcels are wrapped and ready to be presented to their intended recipients. There are a few big ones that should prove interesting to lug down to Sydney but we'll manage somehow.

Mum is going to be driving down with Alison's parents on the 23rd while Al and I fly down to meet up with everyone on Christmas Eve itself. Can't wait for the break as I think we all deserve a mini holiday. Whispered promises of fun loot come Christmas morning doesn't hurt either. Hope Santa doesn't dissapoint.

After a little saga at the travel agent's we successfully negotiated mum's January travel plans last week. While it's not the most efficient arrangement we can certainly say that she'll have seen a fair chunk of Australia by the end of her trip. Starting on the eve of the new year, mum flies down to Sydney to catch the Indian Pacific railway down to Adelaide. From there she'll travel by the Ghan up to Alice Springs, which is right out in the middle of nowhere. If you've seen "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert" you have an idea of how long it takes to get to Alice Springs. Anyways, once there she'll travel around the area for a few days to take in the sights which obviously include Uluru (more commonly known as Ayer's Rock). After that (and this was a point of some contention in the planning stage) she'll hop back on the Ghan to travel 12 hours up to Darwin just to spend the night in a seedy motel, then reboard the next morning to trundle back down on a return trip. At least she'll get to see lots of rocks and desert. A few more trips and tours later and she'll be on a plane up from Sydney back to Brisbane to rejoin us on the 18th of January with heaps of pictures and interesting stories to share.

Beware all drivers

Muahaha! The fools have passed me and unwittingly unleashed Crasher McChua upon the gentle public. With this ugly gold card I now have free reign to visit unbridled automotive destruction on commuters everywhere. Fear me! FEAR ME!!!



At least the darn picture is on centre this time, which is a good thing as it'll have to last me five years.

Edit: I did actually play around with the idea of obfuscating my info on the card but was too lazy at the time to open up Photoshop. Still too lazy to do that but I've made an effort to use the soft focus filter on Picasa to blur most of the image while leaving my dashing mug shot intact. Enjoy!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

Well mum landed last night safe and sound. We got to the airport about an hour too early due to some misinterpretation of her arrival time. Thankfully we both thought to bring along our DSs so time flew by with a few rounds of Mario Kart.

On her first day here we dragged mum all around Brisbane to hunt for presents and to buy Christmas decorations. It's the first tree Alison and I have bought together so it was pretty special and the three of us had a fun time putting everything up. There was a minor set back when I managed to break the fairy lights AFTER we finished setting it up on the tree but it was all fixable.



Now we just have to start wrapping up our presents to put around the base. Hope I get lots of big boxes full of electronic goodness. :)

Ben Lee

Haven't really had a chance to sit down this week to write a quick post about the concert on Sunday. Turned up close to eight when the gates were supposed to open and there was a queue running around the block. By the time we got through the door most of the choice spots with seats were already taken so we just planted ourselves in the growing throng of moshers in front of the stage and set in for a long wait.

I have to say that I really don't care much for these swiss cheese concerts with never ending intermissions. We paced around for more than half an hour waiting for the first act to start. He was some solo guitarist that we'd never heard of that seemed ok even though everyone in the crowd talked over his set. Only good thing I can remember about him is that he played a nice looking Maton.

The second band was a lot better and it's a shame I couldn't catch their name. Superb rhythm section with really funky bass lines. At least these guys played with volume so that got the audience moving right.



Finally after what seemed like forever, Ben and the band came on at about 10:30 and rocked the house down. At first I was worried that they seemed to be rehashing their set from the Missy Higgins concert but a few anecdotes and change in pace brought a huge grin to my face. Ben swapped between a Taylor and a Gibson through his songs. Really worn down looking guitars but darn they sounded good plugged in.

Lovely night. Shame we had to leave a little early as Alison wasn't feeling too well but we certainly got our money's worth. Al tells me that U2 are coming to play in Brissie in March so that might be our next concert on the horizon.

Oh and Mum's landing tomorrow!!! Guess we'd better clean up the place before she comes.

Wet Weekend Wedding

Phew, what a busy weekend. Alison and I had to attend quite a few functions including a funeral, an engagement party and a wedding so we're pretty knackered now. Any time we had to spare on the weekend we used to recuperate by playing lots of Mario Kart against each other on our DS (fantastic stuff by the way) and watching old West Wing episodes in our pajamas.

The wedding was certainly a memorable experience. Kieran and Michelle, who are old friends of ours from uni, had been going out for ages so we were really hoping they would have a nice day to tie the knot. As we were getting ready to head up to the botanical gardens to meet everyone Alison spotted a few storm clouds rolling in which didn't seem like a very good sign. I had planned on bringing my camera to take a few pictures for them but boy am I glad I didn't.

When we arrived at the wedding lawn the sky looked pretty grey but most of us were optimistic. The best man even informed all the guests that he had just looked up the satellite images before coming and that this was a thin band of storm clouds that would blow over shortly. Well the rain started falling heavily so everyone without an umbrella huddled under the gazebo while the bride remained waiting in the car for the weather to pass.



I of course had an umbrella so I gallantly gave my spot under cover so that others could remain dry. Shame the useless $10 hunk of junk I had over my head reached saturation point in 5 minutes and started dripping on me anyway. You know you've been had when you have to water proof your umbrella.

The raindrops stopped falling on my head after about 15 minutes so we proceeded with the wedding. During that brief respite it really was a wonderful day for the two of them and we could see that everyone involved put a lot of effort into it. There were two musicians in period dress playing Bach, the boys and girls looked great and Michelle's entrance was framed by an arch of soap bubbles blown from the crowd. I think that was just about all the luck they could afford as the minute they finished their vows we all felt the now familiar pelt of precipitation.

Once again we huddled under the gazebo for what cover it provided, which wasn't much as this was a torrential downpour. The rain was actually hitting us sideways and was punctuated by flashes of lightning and thunder right overhead. Then it started to hail...



We got another 15 odd minutes of that before it all stopped and we rushed to the car to head home for a hot shower and coco. Congratulations to Kieran and Michelle, it can only go up from here for the two of you. :)

Ikea fever

A downside of the original vision for our apartment decor is that we can't really cater for formal dining due to the lack of... well... a dining table. Pigging out on the coffee table while watching TV is all fine until the rare guest pops around for a bite. In anticipation of the steamboat dinner that mum has planned for us come Chinese New Year we decided it was probably time to get a little set for the other room.

After a little hunting around the Ikea show floor we spotted a little utility table that served our purposes. It's nice because we get to fold it away when we don't need it and it even has three drawers on each side. Ideal to be converted into the games table when we replace it with a real dining table at some point.



Assembling the darn thing would prove to be rather challenging...



But we succeeded in the end with much blisters, cursing and WAY more tools than I believe should be necessary for self assembled furniture. And this was after putting together six flat packed chairs to go with it. That's about as close to being a handyman as I'm ever going to get.

A soul singing with six strings

Well that cuts it. I always use to say that my first pay check in the work force would go towards paying for a solid wood acoustic. Practicality and real life necessities have delayed the purchase but I've finally gone and bought my first 'decent' guitar.



Here she is in all her glory. A Cole Clark Fat Lady 2 cutaway with acoustic pickups, bunya top and Queensland maple back and sides. I was going to go for the spruce top but they only had one made from bunya which didn't bother me as I liked the look and sound I got from it. Hard to believe what a difference it is compared to my Washburn. The sustain is pretty darn amazing and she's so easy to play it's hard to put her down. This is one case where you don't want it to be over when the fat lady sings. :)

We heard from a few friends that Billie Hyde in the valley were having a crazy sale so we checked the prices there first. Good thing too as the model I wanted to get ended up being about 300 bucks cheaper than what I was prepared to pay for it. Can't complain really.

Another concert

So excited about this as I haven't been able to talk about it for weeks for fear that Alison might actually read this blog. About two weeks ago I picked up a couple of tickets to the Ben Lee concert we were so eager to see but couldn't find anywhere. Managed to 'hunt then down' without Alison's knowledge so I could surprise her and it was well worth it. :P



Heheh, sitting here writing this post while I get a nice dinner cooked for me. Nothing better than getting pampered if you ask me.

It's going to be great! The concert looks like it's going to go on pretty late with Ben starting his set at 11 and finishing up at around 1 in the morning. Not what we'd normally do on a Sunday evening so I may have to see if I can convince Dan to let me have the day off to sleep...

Road trippin'

Had my first driving lesson today. I know it's been a while since I've driven a manual but heck the instructor didn't trust me at ALL. The guy kept hitting my brake and clutch even when we had AMPLE room. Must say he wouldn't last two minutes driving in Malaysia.

Seems like they didn't put up too much of a fuss when I showed them my Malaysian license so I should be able to go straight on to my open license (no probationary period) once I've passed my test. I'm currently booked in for another lesson on the 10th of December and the test on the 13th so I guess I'd better start practicing.

I've been trying to curb my spending what with the expensive holiday season coming up but I do have something new to add to my lust list. Alison and I went on a death march around the CBD looking for music stores so I could check out prices on a Maton CW80. I've been drooling for one of these for about three years now. Another six string I've recently started considering as an alternative is the Cole Clark Fat Lady 2. It feels pretty similar to the CW80 and the luthier has apparently been making Maton guitars for over 40 years and just recently started his own brand. Much cheaper too so it's real tempting.

Outdoorsy stuff and cleanliness

Forgot to mention that Alison picked up a bike on Sunday on an impulse buy. It's a standard 21 speed GT mountain bike with some slick tyres slapped on so in theory we both have similar setups though I swear mine goes downhill faster. Could just be that I'm an overweight lazy bum and gravity is on my side for once. :P

I think we cycled close to 10K on the first day just around the neighbourhood and discovering little bike lanes we'd ignored till now. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera out that day but I did manage to take a few snaps when we substituted a gym visit for a quick ride on Tuesday.



Threats to push me off my seat while I tried to take pictures one handed pretty much forced me to settling for a snap from behind. I'm just surprised she didn't brake suddenly so I'd swerve and crash.

It's been pretty busy at work lately with lots of releases and pressure to reduce turn around time on our issues. Somehow managed to get guilted into cleaning up my desk to 'improve productivity' so I thought it would be a good idea to catalogue the rare occasion.



Yeah I know it still looks cluttered but trust me when I say that's an improvement.

Rock on!

Super weekend! The Social Club Christmas party on Friday was a blast though I must say that the party boat got pretty darn small with everyone on board. Especially during the stampede to the bar for one dollar drinks. There were some pretty darn crazy hats and wigs out there and Craig and Don didn't disappoint.



Four hours of karaoke, drinking, dancing, more drinking, huge oily burgers and yet more drinking was a pretty good effort by our standards. The boat docked close to midnight so we had to wait for ages at the station for a train to come in. It's kinda scary seeing the sort of people that are up at those hours waiting for the train. Large groups of goths, drunks and school kids high on sniffing paint or whatever they do these days.

Saturday turned out to be another late night on the town as we got to see MISSY HIGGINS AND BEN LEE in concert!!! Cue hoards of teenage girls screaming "Missy!" from the ridiculously packed hillside. I can't believe how much money they must have made squeezing all of us into the venue. A good 80 people had to stand in what was effectively the aisle because they couldn't move to find a place to sit down on the grass.

Anyways, it was a Missy Higgins and Friends concert at Riverside so there were a few other acts before the main event but we were just waiting for Ben and Missy to come on. Missy is probably the closest I'll come to a Tori Amos concert over here (That angsty, wailing, piano pounding, chick rock that I love so much). Both of them put on a great show though Alison and I both thought it would have been better if Ben Lee had a longer set. I think he's going to be playing at the Arena on the 27th of November so there's a good chance that we'll be buying tickets.

Flock to the Web OS

Here's a bit of non-google news for a change. Albert just pointed me in the direction of a new browser to test drive called Flock which is another Mozilla based browser like Firefox. It's still in beta at the moment (like half of the applications I use) but the feature set certainly seems promising. Basically the developers have tried to integrate a lot of social aspects of the web into the browser itself. Flock supports del.icio.us, flickr, blogging, RSS and I'm sure a bunch of other nifty concepts I've yet to discover. I'm writing this post from a Flock window so hopefully the formatting will turn out fine on the site.

Another bit of web gadgetry I've stumbled across is Goowy, obviously a play on GUI (Graphic User Interface). Goowy is a flash based web... hmm... platform I suppose that the developers are using to create a (my favourite word) persistant desk top. Creating an account allows you to log in to access a web mail client (with two gigs of storage space), calendar functions, games, widgets and a heck of a lot more to come. Goowy's web mail even supports POP3 so you don't have to give up your Gmail account. This could easily become my start page if they add a bit more functionality and provide support for synching with my mobile devices.

In the real world Alison and I are looking forward to this weekend. We'll be rocking up to South Bank to board a boat for the Michael Hill social club Christmas party on Friday. There will be a crazy hat and wig theme for the night, karaoke and company subsidised booze so I envision much silliness and drunken antics.

On Saturday we'll be nursing hang overs and shuffling down to Riverside for a Missy Higgins and Ben Lee concert. It'll be the first concert I've been to in years, the last one being with Nevermore and Lacuna Coil. I somehow doubt there'll be a mosh pit at this one. :P

50th post and a Happy Birthday

Wow, didn't think this phase would last very long really but I'm still posting here sporadically. Just thought I would write a short one to wish my mum a very happy birthday today. We we're going to use this as an excuse to buy a cheese cake to celebrate over here but my expanding waist line and dismal gym attendance proved compelling enough to scrap that idea.

Happy Birthday Mum. Can't exactly remember how old you are but that's never been important in my eyes. Looking forward to your visit in December. :)

TGIF

Woah this week just flew by. Looks like it's going to be a nice long weekend for me. We have a developer meet up to discuss future IT work practices today so it'll be a nice change of pace, hopefully with some good outcomes. It's going to be at Taringa which is one train stop away from Indooroopilly so this'll probably be the only time my trip into 'work' will be shorter than everyone else's (possibly with the exception of Jane as it's her house). Not much gaming time on the train today it seems.

Absolutely loving the new firmware patch for the SuperCard. At the moment I'm jumping between two games I have on it depending on my mood.

The first is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Heh, if Trauma Centre were a surgical simulation I guess PW would be a lawyer simulation. It sorta plays out like an episode of Law and Order in Anime style. You have to question witnesses and find clues to contradict witness testimonies so you can prove your client is innocent. Sorta half logic puzzle half english comprehension and darn it's addictive if just to see what the next twist in the trial is.

The other game I'm hooked on right now is a Japanese music game "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!". It roughly transaltes as "Go! Fight! Cheer squad!", which you can probably deduce from the title is one whacky game. The game involves different scenes of people in need of help so the Cheer Squad, three gangsters that dance and cheer to keep the subject's fighting spirit up so they can complete the task at hand. This may be anything from a student trying to pass university entrance exams to two policemen fighting alien robots so watching the cut scenes is a real hoot. The music is excellent too and includes titles from my favourite Japanese rock bands L'arc en Ciel, Hitomi Yaida and Asian Kungfu Generation.

Haven't had the chance to play much PC games lately but I'll be sure to rectify that this weekend. Itching to install Black & White 2 so I can wreak wanton havoc on my misguided followers.

Melbourne trip

Ah, a little more time to write about our weekend trip now. We landed on Thursday night at about 9 in the evening and caught a cab to our hotel in the city. Not wanting to waste any time we dumped our bags and hit the road looking for some supper, which we found just down the road at the aptly named Supper Club. It was great sitting among the Melbourne bourgeois in their black turtle necks sipping wine while we scoffed down a tepid bowl of chorizo and chick pea stew.

The next day we trekked into the city centre to take in the sights and sounds of a bustling city. The city skyline and wide roads really put Brisbane in perspective and it feels like we live in a small country town in comparison. Here's a picture of Flinder's street station and the ubiquitous Melbourne trams that trundle pass on the main streets.



We had a real nice breakfast at Federation square (my staple for the weekend seemed to be eggs benedict) and marched on. Alison of course had to stop by Haigh's, her favourite chocolate store to get some chocolate covered orange slices. I don't fancy them too much myself for which she's very grateful.



John and Sheena suggested checking out the Queen Victoria Markets which we did. It was really surprising how cheap all the food was and the samples we tried were delicious. I've since discovered that the cost of living in Melbourne is actually lower than Brisbane so chalk up another reason for relocating.

I started getting lazy with composing pictures and just wanted to catalogue the sights as we went so this shot (among others) was taken from the hip 'lomo' style.



For lunch we trotted along to Lygon street which is probably one of the most famous food spots in Melbourne. It's basically a long row of predominantly Italian restaurants with especially friendly waiters that entice you with the specials as you walk past the store front. We ended up choosing this little spot on the promise that they had great lasagna (they did). Here's Alison scanning the menu before settling on chicken and mushroom fetuccini (also excellent).



I didn't hope to find a large board game store on our trip but Alison was kind enough to point out a Mind Games store we walked past so I had to go in to take a look. I really wish they had as wide a selection here in the Brisbane shops because I could have picked up at least three or four new games right there and then. We ended up walking out with just one new game (Formula De) and three Blue Moon expansions which was pretty restrained considering.

Here's a picture of our game of Formula De in the hotel room. It was seven in the morning and nothing was open before anyone starts screaming at me for wasting our time playing games when we could have been out shopping/eating. It's a good game for lots of players that doesn't use up too much brain juice. I believe it'll be great for an wine and cheese evening with friends.



We met up with Tim on Friday evening and on Saturday to head out for some Chinese food and a quick trip to St Kilda. Every spot in Melbourne reminds me of AFL which is understandable considering how many teams there are in Victoria. While in St Kilda we stopped to take a few pictures of Luna Park's disturbing entrance way. Clowns are just freaky.



On Saturday we walked across the bridge over the Yarra river, which is basically a drain, to Melbourne's South Bank. There were heaps of really nice looking restaurants there but nothing really took our fancy at the time. Instead we decided to stop to watch a side show that was just starting. The girl was just about to hula hoop forty rings at the same time.



Our anniversary dinner was at a little cafe on Hardware Street. There was a wedding procession making their way through while we waited for our meals to come. It was a very nice candle lit meal accompanied by a jazz trio on one end of the street and a flamenco band on the other.



Sunday was a quiet one which we spent wandering through the international art exhibition that was held in Federation Square. It wasn't long before we found ourselves packed up and waiting for the shuttle bus to the airport. A very relaxing weekend and we really should do this more often.

I noticed while writing this post that the new version of Picasa has stopped using Hello as an upload system for posting pictures on Blogger. The new format along with support for my camera raw files earns mucho points in my book. Ah, I love Google news.

We're back

What a fantastic weekend. Alison and I had a great time down in Melbourne taking in the sights and sampling lots of local cuisine. We managed to do quite a bit in the three days we were there so we're physically stuffed and financially buggered. Must say that it was all worth it in the end though.

I'd write more and put up a bunch of pictures that we took but the new firmware/loader for my SuperCard has been released in our absence so I truly don't have the will to break away from my DS as yet. A longer update on our trip to follow during the week if time permits.

Thought I might share a picture of what we got each other for our two year anniversary though. Shame Alison's ring isn't in focus but that's what you get with a one handed shot while waiting for breakfast.

Not so super colours

Picked up my Supercard yesterday but didn't have time to write a post as we met Kath and Andrew for dinner. It's been a while since we've eaten at Pizza Cafe and I think I'm starting to like it again. Probably got sick of it after eating too much before.

Anyway, Supercard... all exciting. The only thing I was concerned about when I picked it up was the colour of the card. To date I've never seen a site that lets you choose what colour you get when ordering so I basically hoped I would get a decent one. The original cart when RomMan first released it was a transparent blue which looked a little cheap in my opinion but certainly servicable. From other pictures I'd seen I hoped for a nice solid grey card to suit my silver DS. Imagine my surprise when I tore open the box to find... PINK



At least the darn thing works. I flashed the latest firmware onto it and can now play NES, GBA and NDS games all off my spare 128MB SD card. It's wonderful doing away with flash hardware. Now I just need to wait for the next firmware update to allow larger ROM sizes which should be released this week.

Guess I'll get to try that out when we come back from our trip on Sunday. Hope to have lots of urban pictures of Melbourne to share.

Google goodness

It's been a while since my last Google gush. Google has just released Google Reader, it's own web based RSS reader and another building block on the house of Google OS. I've tried numerous times to get into subscribing to RSS feeds but I've never found a decent reader with a good layout. Firefox has a few good RSS plugins but the problem I have with that is the same issue I take with localised bookmarks, you just can't take them everywhere. I like my web browsing experience to be as persistant as possible so as del.icio.us has done for my bookmarking, Google Reader will do as an introduction to RSS for me.

On the off chance that you're not familiar with RSS I'll do my best to give you a quick and dirty definition. RSS or Really Simple Syndication is basically a service that most websites these days provide that allows readers to subscribe to feeds. New updates to the site are then atomically distributed to subscribers to view on their RSS reader/viewer. Updates usually come in the form of new posts to a site (like this blog for example), news articles, music (which is basically what a podcast is), video or pretty much anything you can think of serving. That's my understanding of what it is anyway, if you need a extended/accurate description you can always find one on our favourite online encyclopedia

Oh, and the Australian Postal service is back on the Christmas card list. I just got my notice of attempted delivery so by this time tomorrow I should have a beautiful new SuperCard to test out on my DS. Oh joy oh joy oh joy.

Fun day of sun in the city

We originally planned on having brekkie with Kath and Andrew today to celebrate Andrew's grand accomplishment with finishing all his medical exams. Unfortunately the two of them still haven't come back from their trip and with our Melbourne plans next weekend we'll just have to postpone the festivities a while. Denied the chance of social contact and unwilling to spend another day sweltering at home, Alison and I grabbed our gear and struck out into the city with the aim to find entertainment and food.

Breakfast consisted of overpriced eggs benedict and a dissapointing continental serve on the river at Southbank. The view was great and it was good fun taking pictures of the cyclist riding by but the food could have been a lot better. Taking panning shots of the moving cyclists turned out to be a lot harder than I anticipated. After a heap of tweaking with exposure settings I was finally getting somewhere but by then we'd polished off our meals and it was time to move on. This was probably the best of the bunch and I love that puzzled look.



Alison was cringing in her chair as I snapped at passers by. She seems to think that taking pictures of random people will get me a broken camera and a fatal beating but so far my 'international features' seem to have placated the angry masses from taking action. I figure if I ever do get confronted I can feign ignorance and try to explain my unfamiliarity with the English language through frantic hand gestures and tongue clicking.

After breakfast we wandered around most of Southbank and the CBD, visiting the Southbank Markets, the Riverside Markets, the King George Square markets and a quick browse in the shops on Queenstreet Mall. I of course was happy to let Alison scavenge through trinkets and amused myself by taking pictures of her among the shops. Here's a picture of Al running out of patience with me at King George Square.



At least she managed to buy a couple of things on this shopping trip including a new black top (very nice) and some cheap $3 earrings. I picked up a photography book at Borders for a little bed time reading. All together a nice day even if I have slipper tan lines on my feet now.

The new ice box

Couldn't have picked a hotter day for the new fridge to be delivered. I think it hit about 35 degrees today so the air conditioner had a pretty good work out for most of it. The crappy thing about defrosting your old fridge and waiting for your new one to get cool is that you have nothing chilled to drink.



We love having a funky looking fridge now. In the store we originally thought that this buy would decrease our fridge space but it seems to have done quite the opposite. Then again we probably bought less this week as we're off to Melbourne on Thursday.

In an uncharacteristic display of semi gadget fetishism, Alison pointed out today that our new fridge means that we've finally gotten rid of all our old aging appliances. In my mind we could probably do with a few more upgrades (a 24" Dell LCD monitor perhaps) but for now I'm happy to share this moment of consumer pride with her.

Mmm many games

Sad to say that I didn't come home today to find my SuperCard waiting on the doorstep so I have yet another week of longing and rushing back from work to look for attempted delivery notes. Might be a blessing though as there seem to be a fair few good games coming out lately and I don't have the time to play all of them.

Winter Assault, the expansion (hopefully the first of many) for Warhammer 40K Dawn of War came out a while back and I finally got my hands on a copy yesterday. It adds the Imperial Guard to the list of playable races which I still find a little dissapointing as I would have preferred something along the lines of say the Dark Eldar or the Tyrannids. IG are still lots of fun though from what I could tell in the tutorial and I'm looking forward to spending some time purging heathens in the name of the Emperor this weekend.

Also picked up another ROM for my DS which I've been waiting for. Trauma Centre: Under the Knife is for the lack of a better term a surgical simulation and is another example of why I think the DS is far superior to the overpriced and unoriginal PSP. In the game you follow a anime-ish story line of a young surgeon and deal with various operations, using the stylus and touch screen to conduct your procedures with different tools. It feels like a cross between the old Operation boardgame and a puzzler as you usually have to figure out how best to treat your patient based on the diagnosis and suggestions from other surgeons and nurses. Good clean fun.

Guess these two games and a few other promising ones on the horizon will keep me happy till I find a parcel and RomMan releases the patcher for the SuperCard to play 512Mb ROMs. Oh it's so hard being a gaming geek. :P

Uneventful

It's been a real monotonous week so far. I've been getting up earlier in the morning to catch the 6:20 train to work in with hope that getting home earlier would allow me to frequent the gym that's bleeding my bank account dry. This plan hasn't worked yet but I'm optimistic. Personal fitness aside, the weather in Brisbane is getting uncomfortably warm yet again so avoiding the sun on the walk into work is probably worth rushing out the door each day.

Still no SuperCard package from the UK yet. I've been eagerly checking the mailbox but the only letters I find waiting for me are either bills or adverts. It's a sad, sad life without new toys.

Alison asked me to help her with a little template for her to use at work to keep track of patients. It's odd how user requirements are much harder to visualise when the 'customer' tries to help you come up with a solution. When we first started talking it seemed like I would have to develop and Access database with a friendly frontend. Thankfully we managed to achieve the same thing with a Excel spreadsheet and smart formatting. Reminded me of the endless days of template design that I did at Telstra.

Food for thought

Today Alison and I went out for a walk in the morning down to the Indooroopilly farmer's market. It's held fortnightly on Sunday at the Nudgee Junior school fields and consists of a wide variety of food products from fresh fruit and veg to piping hot take away meals. I started the day with a frankfurter with saurkraut fresh off the grill while Alison had what I believe is the first cornish pastie I've seen in Australia. It wasn't half bad but I still prefer the pasties that come out of my Aunt Lucy's oven in Torquay. After walking around and stuffing our faces with gelati and free samples we left the markets with a huge bag of oranges, three ears of corn for a dollar and this lovely container full of marinated fetta cheese. I think we're definitely going to have to come back to do our shopping next time.

Spurred on by the promise of good food, we finally took the plunge today and bought a new fridge to replace the aging behemoth that sits in our kitchen. I would have gone for the super duper icebox with a built in TV and complimentary IP address but we managed to come to a compromise and picked the most cost effective fridge with some buttons on it for me to fiddle with. Our new toy (an LG GR-R466JTA) should be delivered next Saturday. Can't wait to play with the child lock feature. ^_^

Eyes only

Back from another night at the movies and the show for this week was Serenity. It's a sci-fi flick directed by Joss Whedon (the guy who wrote Buffy and Angel) and is based off his lesser known series Firefly. I'm a fan of the show (Firefly that is) and always thought it was a shame that the studios decided to can it after half a season so buying a ticket to watch Serenity was a no brainer really. Alison required a little more convincing but I genuinely think she enjoyed it so I might stand a chance at coercing her into watching the series with me again. :)

Spent most of today making my way through Full Metal Alchemist which is the first anime I've watched in a while. It's enjoyable and certainly fills in the time on my train ride to work. Might just be that I'm jaded after watching too much anime in my 'youth' but it still seems pretty familiar. I'd probably describe it as a cross between Trigun and Flame of Recca. Never thought I'd start getting picky about the shows I watch. The anime does however get bonus points from me for using a L'arc en Ciel song (Ready, Steady, Go) as an opening theme.

Also picked up my Raynox lens from the post office today. Haven't really had a chance to give it more than a short play. My initial impressions are that the magnification and working distance is great but the attachment seems to slow down my setup considerably so I'm forced to use longer shutter speeds and a tripod. Most of my tests were done indoors in pretty crappy lighting though so things might be different on a flower shoot in the sun.

Incoming lens!

Woohoo, just got an email from the camera store that my Raynox lens is now on the way. Since they had the sense to send it on a Thursday this time I'm hoping it'll arrive on my door step by tomorrow. Perfect timing for a weekend of funky macro shooting. Still no sign of my supercard but that'll probably only get here next week.

In anticipation of my new lens I thought I might share one of my better attempts at 'macro-insectography' on our trip to Toowoomba. This was taken with a 50mm prime reversed as a magnifying glass in front of a 18-55mm zoomed to the max. Working distance wasn't very good at all so I had to get right up to the bees. It took a little getting used to as I usually bolt as fast as I can in the opposite direction when faced with insects. Subject blur was a major issue this time but at least with two lenses I could control my aperture this time and achieved a greater depth of field.



I just heard from my mum that she's planning a trip down to see us for Christmas which is going to be great! She then plans on trekking about Australia till Chinese New Year 2006 (which I believe is currently slated for January 29th) when she'll come back for a final stay before launching off on some crazy jaunt across Asia and Europe to finally arrive in the UK to spend Christmas with my Aunt. *Phew* That's quite a trip and power to her.

Mum's apparently caught the photography bug too and hopes to catalog her trip by taking heaps of portrait shots of the people she meets along the way. I think that'll be a wonderful project and can't wait to do something similar one day for myself.

Celebrate good times

Alison just heard today (unofficially) that she's gotten that permanent position at the PA. She'll probably only hear about the details towards the end of this week but it's a huge relief to know everything's going to be ok. Still no idea which position she'll be getting but signs are currently pointing to her remaining where she is at BIRU (Brain Injury Rehab Unit). Huzzah for my smart baby.

I spent my day off today walking around the city looking for an impulse buy. I was hoping to stumble across the War of the Ring boardgame but picked up Blue Moon by Reiner Knizia instead. It's basically a Collectable Card Game without the collectable bit. You just buy set decks which can be customised if you feel so inclined. The game itself has a simple rule set which is good for Alsy but there's also some meat to it. So far it seems pretty fun and quick to play. The games cupboard hasn't had a new addition in a while now anyway.

After an absence

Been a while since my last post, mainly due to being cooped up in bed or feeling too tired to draft something up. I've managed to miss three days of work this week and would have gone for four if I hadn't already booked in Friday and Monday off for flex time. Tuesday through to Thursday were lost to a high fever, which an overpriced chest x-ray and urine sample proved to be nothing more than the beginnings of a nasty flu. Friday on to the weekend confirmed that with wretched coughing spells that no ammount of herbal tonics or cough suppressants seemed to help. It's a good thing I still have tomorrow to rest and try to kill this before shuffling back into the office on Tuesday.

Teetering on Death's door didn't stop me from having a 'busy' week though. I was very happy to discover that some kind soul has released a patch tool for NDS ROMs so that they can be loaded from any ordinary GBA flash cart on a DS which has been effectively modified. Basically I got to try out some of the smaller Nintendo DS ROMs in my collection for the first time. Now I'm really keen to get my mitts on the other games so I've gone and ordered a Supercard. It's basically a GBA flash cart which takes SD memory cards rather than using internal memory.

The other bit of Nintendo DS news is that Nintendogs has just been released in Australia. I couldn't resist and bought Alison her own DS and copy of Nintendogs as well so we could both play. She has a little mini schnauzer called Bella while I have two puppies, Kiba a siberian husky and a shitzu named Princess.

Wireless play with the two DSs is a real hoot. It's great playing songs together in Band Brothers.



We also went up to Toowoomba on Friday to see John and Sheena and take some pictures of at the Carnival of Flowers. Things weren't quite so well done this year due to the difficult water restrictions and the heavy winds that whipped through last week. Most of the flower beds looked like they had been trampled on but I still managed to get a few shots in.

Here's a picture Alison took of me experimenting with my 'gun'. I stuck on my new 50mm prime in reverse on top of my 200mm telephoto for some extreme macro shots. It was the best I could do as I still haven't received my DCR-250. :'(

Ohh the pain

Staying home from work today to nurse a tender tummy. Probably wasn't a good idea to stuff myself with half a BBQ chook last night along with potato salad and a box of strawberries. Guess I'll have to detox today with simple soups but we're all out of Trident clean noodle soup sachets (great for the upset stomach assuming you don't load up all the chilli in the packets).

On the bright side Australia Air Express tried to deliver my new lens yesterday afternoon so I'll be able to pick it up at the post office on the way to the supermarket. Hopefully playing around with my new EF 50mm will draw my attention away from the loop-de-loops going on in my digestive system.

That 80s show

Alison and I attended an 80s themed party thrown by Jane and Phil from work tonight. It was a good laugh seeing everyone from work dressed up with mullets, lipstick and funky clothes. Here's a shot of us heading out the door in costume. Alison's gone for the pop girl look with the big neck top and Madonna lace glove while I'm garbed in rebel white shirt and jeans with my menthols (actually more like mentos) stuck up a shirt sleeve.



That's the first pair of jeans I've worn in close to ten years I would say. We look so bad we might actually be cool.

Jaw dropping

We just finished watching Final Fantasy Advent Children and all I can say is... wow. The story probably won't make much sense to people that haven't played the game but heck the action alone should be enough to win most people over. Pure poetry in motion, it's a visual orgasm. If I had to gush anymore I'd have to resort to screaming like a thirteen year old girl.

Alison didn't really get the movie but she's not really one for fancy choreography, especially not on this level. Years of reading manga and watching anime prepares you for the flowing chaos that goes on in the movie. Wachowski brothers take note, THAT's how you do it darnit.

I'm now copying it onto my PDA so I can watch various fight scenes on the go. It'll be a fantastic demo to show people that you can do a heck of a lot more with your Pocket PC than use it as a glorified address book.

Oh and it didn't hurt that Tifa (my favourite character from the Final Fantasy VII) looks smoking hot in the movie. :)



Side note, Blogger refused to play nice with uploading pictures so I'm giving Image Shack a go.

Teamspeak

Thought I might try playing Guildwars with teamspeak on tonight and it was a blast. Teamspeak basically allows you to talk to all your team mates while you're playing the game and it really added a whole new dimension to things. Only got to play with Donald and Ben but it was still fun nonetheless. In fact I would imagine that things could get pretty chaotic quickly with a full 8 player team.

Definitely going to have to play more Guildwars in the future. I haven't logged in to the game for over two months and I'd forgotten how beautiful and how much fun the game is. The new areas that the developers have released look awesome and the startling thing is that it's all for FREE (Guildwars is still the only MMORPG that I know of that doesn't charge it's players a monthly subscription fee).

In other geeky/game related news, Final Fantasy Advent Children is out on a torrent. I'm downloading it now so we should be able to watch it this weekend. I downloaded the trailer a few months back and I must say that it looks EXCELLENT.

End of the week

Yay!!!
It's Friday!!! The week is over!!!

Boo!!!
No lenses waiting for me when I got home. I did get an email from the company telling me that they shipped my parcel but if I read it right they're still back ordering the Raynox lens. So basically... they waited all week for the lens to ship my package... then sent it on overnight delivery that won't get to me till MONDAY (next business day). What the heck is the point in overnight delivery if you're not going to get it for three days?

Grumble grumble grumble

23 Months

Happy anniversary to us, and just a month away from the 2 year mark. Guess we'd better book that flight to Melbourne soon. I wonder if the flights are going to be any cheaper in light of the recent terror threats. :/

Now on to haphazard rambling...

Downloading Microsoft Max right now which is their new image browsing/sharing app. It probably won't replace Picasa as my main organising tool but I must say the new WinFX framework looks pretty. Am I the only one that doesn't mind the fact that MS interfaces are becoming more like Apple's?

Got a call from the camera store to confirm that my payment has been received and that they're just waiting on the Raynox lens before they post it. Looks like it'll be a fun weekend of snapping to warm up to the Toowoomba trip next week.

One of the perks of waking up earlier for work yesterday was I got to snap a lovely morning sky.



When things return to normal next week I might actually start going in early and leaving late. The train was a lot less crowded and I had a shorter wait in transit at Roma Street station.

Ah, almost Friday.

Little things

It's only Tuesday and I'm already feeling exhausted from work. Must say that I can't wait for this week to be over. At the moment I'm just trying to concentrate on the little things that I can look forward to.

Alison has a second interview with the PA (Princess Alexandra Hospital) tomorrow for a permanent social work position. She's been hard at work preparing (well a little) so I'm sure she'll do a fantastic job. It'll be great once she's firmly entrenched in the Queensland health system so I can get dibs on Q-Super which is supposed to be one of Queensland's best superannuation funds, or so I'm told.

I also ordered a new lens (Canon EF 50mm F1.8) and a macro adapter (Raynox DCR-250) from a camera store in Victoria. They say that they're just waiting for the Raynox to come into stock (probably on Thursday) and they'll ship it overnight so I should hopefully have the new toys in time for the weekend.

As an aside I've combined two of my current hobbies and taken to listening to podcasts about photography on my walks to work. www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com is a really informative podcast done by this audio engineer/amateur photographer in Germany and he covers a whole range of topics on his shows along with the occasional interview with specialised photographers.

Almost half-way through the week. Just gotta hang in there...

Additions to the family

We went down to the local pet store today to get a few more fish for the aquarium. Ended up with three new pets for our little glass house and here they are.

(Big) Bertha
Our new snail who is ginormous. She's at least three times the size of our other snail Gaston the Explorer. Either that or he's been shrinking under our scrutiny.



Jeeves
Another algae eater joins Daphne and the other house staff. Hopefully they'll all help keep the tank nice and clean.



Connie Conjunctivitis
And finally our newest 'fish', Connie. She's a fantail like Ingot who you can actually see swimming in the background.



Give 'em all a big hand *clap clap clap*

Garden Picnic

Went to the gym for the first time in over three months. After a pitifully short exercise session we stumbled out into the shopping mall to pick up some groceries and sushi for our picnic today. Armed with 8 rolls of maki, a dirty picnic blanket and our trusty cameras we drove back up to Mount Coot-tha to spend a day at the botanical gardens there.

Following a friend's advice I tried to take all my pictures today in RAW format without any compression. I must say that I doubt I'll do that again as I ran out of space quite quickly on a 1 gig microdrive and it took forever to process the images into JPEG back at my desk.

Alison and I both had lots of fun taking different types of shots which I'll be putting up on Flickr over the next few days. I've really started to notice the drawbacks of using my 350D kit lens (an EF-S 18-55) to take reverse-lens macro shots. Since the lens doesn't have a seperate aperture ring for manual adjustments I basically get ZERO depth of field which is making it very hard to compose my shots. I still get the odd one that I'm happy with but I'd like to think I could do better.



Now I'm considering getting a set of diopter lenses to trial macro shots at the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers that's going to be on from the 16th of September till the 25th. Alison and I are planning to go up for the last weekend so we'll get to take more flower shots then. :)

Grrr... no 50mm lens

It was a pretty tough day at the office today (with the promise of an even tougher week to come) so when I hit the city I was pretty keen for some consumer therapy. I met Alison at Central Station and we trekked down to the camera stores hoping to find a nice Canon 50mm prime and a camera bag. Unfortunately it seems like the lens is unbelievably popular in Brissie and usually gets sold within a day of stock arriving so no joy for me there. No one seemed to have a macro coupler ring either so my camera equipment hunger had to remain unsatisfied.

On the bright side, a quick trip into Crumpler proved to be a lot more productive. After perusing the camera bags they had to offer I found one that seemed to fit my needs. Lots of pockets, divided sections and it's nice and sturdy.



It's great because all my other Crumpler accessories (all one of them) can now be used on both my Crumpler bags. Oooh versatility.

Came home on the train only to pack my new bag with stuff and head out again for a night time photo shoot of the city. Got a good chance to use my tripod to take some long exposures but the wind was a little prohibitive when we got up to Mount Coot-tha. Didn't really get any great shots but it was nice to try more techniques and effects like ghost images on long exposures and bokeh shots. I'm sure I didn't execute them perfectly but we still had fun playing around with the camera.

Yeah, I know I should really concentrate on one technique. Tomorrow we're going to be going out for a picnic at the botanical gardens so it's going to be macro/flora all the way baby!

Flowing

Moving on from macro shots, I thought I would try the frozen liquid shots that you see in magazine alcohol ads. Before I started reading up on this I assumed that such shots would be impossible without a studio setup for lighting and a decent backdrop. It seems however that I can get decent exposures even with a crumpled shirt off the laundry line and my built in flash to freeze the water droplets.

Unfortunately the hard part comes from getting the liquid to 'pose' in an interesting fashion. Too many of my shots came out as a stale stream of water poured into the glass. I got my best results when I sloshed the water from height and off the side of the rim to create a swirling effect.

This was probably the best of the bunch but I completely screwed up the white balance.



I also experimented with coloured liquids (added a dash of cordial) though by then my beginner's luck was running out and I was getting absolutely hopeless. Here's an embarassing shot with me missing the glass altogether. Don't worry, I had the foresight to put a bowl underneath to catch such spillage.



Ah well, at least I know the effect is achievable with my current equipment even if I do have to work on my execution. Next time I might try starting simpler with water drops instead of attempting dancing torrents.

Experiments in macro

I've been meaning to try reverse-lens macro shots for a few days now but haven't really had the time. Thankfully a quick look at some of the stunning photos that my friends have been uploading on Flickr has spurred me into action and I tried my hand at a few tonight.

Arthur (our coffee table succulent) was once again my main subject. It took quite a few tries to get the technique involved and even then I'm still not getting perfect shots. Here's the best of the bunch and I must say that I'm quite pleased with the result even if it isn't exactly perfect.



For those of you that aren't familiar with the reverse-lens macro trick, it's basically a cheap alternative to using a real macro lens (which are usually pretty pricey). It involves detaching your lens from the camera body and turning it around so you basically take the shot 'backwards' with the front of the lens facing the camera. This creates the 1:1 ratio or greater effect of a macro lens and it also allows you to get a nice shallow depth of field because you can't close your aperture. The downside of this technique is that you have to manually focus the lens backwards and hold it by hand during the exposure which can be pretty hard at those focal lengths.

I was taking the pictures with a single tungsten overhead light so that might have made things more difficult. I'd imagine that outdoors shots in bright sunlight could be done with a faster shutter speed but then I'd have to worry about the wind moving my subject. Alison and I are thinking of heading to the botanical gardens this weekend for celebrate spring and take some flower pictures so I guess I'd better keep practicing this week if I intend to get some good shots. :)

Just leave me alone

A little gripe of mine, I hate it when people you barely know but see daily on the slog to work try to alleviate their own boredom by starting a conversation with you. It's something that I seem to be facing with uncomfortable frequency. If only there were a polite way to tell these losers to sod off and die without compromising this 'friendly fuzzy asian' facade that I've been cultivating.

Everyday I spend approximately one and a half hours commuting on the train to and from work. This to some people might be mind numbingly boring but to me it's valuable quiet time. It's either early in the morning or after a long day at the office so the last thing I should have to do is make polite conversation with no-names I have the misfortune of sharing a cabin with. I've spent a considerable amount of my not quite so disposable income on a plethora of gadgetry to avoid being stuck with nothing to do for entertainment. Playing with my gadgets make me happy, inconsequential chit-chat with brain dead office workers (who aren't even from my company) does not.

To the morons that can't take my blaring headphones and intimate fascination with my PDA screen as a subtle hint that I don't wish to to exchange pleasentries: please just get a clue or save a few pennies and get some personal toys for yourself. I long for the day we can all travel together on a train with headphones and VR goggles so I don't have to even pretend to ignore you.

Talking on Google

Well after much cajoling from friends and family, I've finally gone out and bought a microphone to use with this whole voice over IP craze. I'm using a logitech USB mic and quality is surprisingly good. I'm talking to Ke Wynn in Malaysia now as I type this, which is a freaky experience. I reckon this would be fantastic for collaborative work.

I've installed Google Talk, Skype and Team Speak now so I'm VOIP'd up to the eyeballs. Should be good for games (when I get back into playing Guildwars) and cheap phonecalls back home. I guess I'll have to wait and see if the novelty of it all dies off.

The Long Day

Well the Saturday trip into the office went on a little longer than we expected but at least it was a success at the end. I actually thought it was a relatively smooth launch even with the stumbling blocks we encountered on the way.

Everyone put in a huge effort to provide a decent spread to keep us going through the day. Jane rocked up with a heap of cheese, grapes, crackers, strawberries, kabanas and cashews. Dan had pineapples, starfruit, olives and a tub of cream. Ross Boss came to lend moral support and dump a 750g bag of cashew nuts (which was never opened ^_^;), lamingtons, more strawberries and a chocolate cake. I added a measely packet of tim tams to the mountain of food that was devoured over a span of eight odd hours.

Here's a belated shot of the pig out session.



Jane and I ended up pulling out a 13 hour day from 11 in the morning till midnight. We were a little drained towards the end so here we are watching the Wallabies get flogged by the All Blacks.



Dan was in the office be seven in the morning running preliminary scripts so he had a mammoth 17 hours. Here he is still going strong.



I reckon it's still going to be a long week ahead of resolving issues but at least the new versions are out there. Hurray for the team!

Al was kind enough to drive out to give me a lift at about 9 at night even thoughs he wasn't feeling too well. I'm going to have to get that darn open license soon. On the bright side she was just in time for our order of Thai food. It was nice bonus that she got a chance to see me doing stuff at work.

Oh, and Happy Fathers day to Dads out there. Dobby and Half didn't get me a present this year but I know they love me all the same. :)