Christmas tucker, broken machines and vroom broom

*Sigh* One more Christmas over and done with. No more presents to open, no more food to eat. Just a mountain of discarded wrapping paper and an expanding waistline to deal with as 2006 comes to a close. Loot and food were both good as usual and it was nice to see all the family together but for some reason this year felt less "Christmasy" than usual. Yet another sign of getting old I guess.



Just a little miffed writing this entry as I'm using my desktop to post for the first time in ages. Reason behind this is poor Gemini has picked a god awful time to decide to go on the blink. From what I can tell it's either a buggered LCD panel or graphics card so either way I'm going to have to send it back in to Toshiba to repair. 14 working days apparently if everything goes well. Bother.

Not exactly a laptop replacement but we managed to procure a new gadget (in the broadest sense of the word) thanks to a very generous contribution from Santa. The crappy $30 vacuum cleaner that's sputtered along our dust ridden floor has finally been replaced with a shiny, black, sucking machine (Minds out of the gutter now). Probably did end up paying more than we'd planned but we did get a good price on it and a free steam mop. We've given it a test run and that Power Head has definitely done a good job on our carpet (You filthy filthy thing).

Wii Christmas

It's that time of year yet again and we'll be driving up to Toowoomba this afternoon for another Christmas in the Liley household. My future mother-in-law has recently earned some geek cred by finally getting ADSL installed at home. Now to get her a webcam and set up video conferencing.

Tried working from home for the first time yesterday and it was just surreal. Managed to get a heap of stuff done that I probably wouldn't have if I were in the office getting interrupted but for some reason it didn't really feel like I'd been to "work". Casual attire was another plus as was the lack of driving in Brisbane traffic so I might continue to exercise my option to telecommute. At least until social isolation and declining personal hygiene force me back into the workplace.

Not a day gone by so far without some getting some Wii-age on. Zelda is certainly looking like it's going to be a longer quest than I initially expected but that's a good thing. Nintendo also surprised everyone by delivering the new Weather Forecast channel a day early so I've been having fun with that. Probably not quite as much fun as Gabe here. Now we're just eagerly awaiting the beta version of Opera that the Big N promised to send us this weekend.

We'll be packing up the console to bring up for everyone to have a go. Can't wait to see what Peter (Alison's tech savvy granddad) will have to say about it.

And on that note we wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Wii Party

Woah, massive Wii madness on Sunday at Kath and Andrew's place (they have the bigger TV). Als and I brought our Wiimotes over for a mammoth seven hour session of Wii Sports and Super Monkey Ball. Four player Tennis is a heck of a lot more fun than two players. We also had a game of bowling which Katherine flogged us at.



No pictures of the actual day itself as we were too busy having fun but I thought I'd try embedding a youtube video for a change. Just a short UK advert showing off Wii Sports.

Monkey Ball minigames were lots of fun too but we did find that a few of them either made no sense or didn't work too well. Highlights (for me at least) were flying like birds by flapping the controllers, running the hurdles by pumping your arms and flicking the wiimote to play frisbee-golf. Good fun and I don't think we even got through all the mini-games.

Hoping that more of you people are going to start buying Wiis so that we can... err... trade Miis and stuff. Here's our Wii number anyway. Be sure to add us and post your Wii numbers too.
1251 2424 0046 0361

Wii launch and Bond

Time for yet another quick and lazy update. I've been far too pre-occupied as of late playing on my new Nintendo Wii and boy is it goooooood. Always the eager puppy I couldn't wait till after work on December 7th when the console was supposed to launch. Nope, toying with the occupational hazards of sleep deprivation we (Alison mainly for moral support) braved the crowd at Indooroopilly at midnight on the 6th just to get our grubby hands on pure gameplay joy a little sooner.



Here's Alison holding the line with Kath and Andrew. Can you feel the excitement in the crowd!? We were told that of 170 pre-orders there would be about 100 customers showing up for the midnight event. Seemed as though every Tom, Dick and Harry decided to bring three friends along so the line was unnecessarily long and messy.

Alright, so not much excitement. No riots and certainly no drive by shootings. In fact there was barely any misbehaving going on in the line up unless you considered the criminal lack of deodorant among the geek crowd.





Just one hour after the official Australian launch I managed to walk out of EB with my brand new Wii. Unwrapping and playing would not commence that night sadly but I managed to get an early start the next day and have been swinging wii-motes wildly ever since.

We needed to take a social break to go to the Michael Hill Christmas party on Friday night. It was a James Bond theme so I opted to go as Q. Alison tells me she's supposed to be "Odd Job" but being Bond-ignorant I haven't the foggiest who that is.



Of course my costume choice was really just an excuse to keep my gadgets on me. I couldn't bear to part with my wii-mote for a second. :)

We'll be heading over to Kath and Andrew's for a Wiikend of multiplayer fun tomorrow so more updates on the super games then. In the mean time I think it's safe to say that Nintendo definitely have a hit on their hands with the Wii, oh and Zelda rocks!

Printing Press

Today Al's and I lugged home our new Canon all-in-one printer and scanner from Harvey Norman. This is of course in anticipation of lots scanning and err... printing that I'm sure we'll do in preparation for the wedding. It'll also come in useful when we need to start printing money to replenish our dwindling bank account.



To test the new toy out I thought I'd print out an electronic issue of Game Developer Magazine for some free loo reading material. Quality is certainly readable though I think I'll have to fork out for some decent quality paper to prevent the ink from bleeding through.

GCAP 2006

Two short days and my first ever game conference is over. It was certainly worth while going as I got to meet a lot of interesting people and listen to great talks on the state of the industry. Unfortunately I also got a chance to really see what the companies are looking for in job applications and my portfolio is rather lacking compared to others out there. Needs improvement I'm afraid.



One of my main disappointments (other than the lack of food provided) was that Nintendo was oddly absent from displays and the booths. I was really hoping to get my hands on playing some Wii titles a week before the launch.

It was kinda hard choosing between some of the keynotes as most of them sounded pretty interesting. I had to turn down "Interactive Storytelling in Games" to attend an "Developing games for Xbox Live Arcade" which I might be interested in pursuing some day. Problem is the number of hoops that M$ make you jump through just to get approval and publish your game on XLA is pretty darn demoralising.



The number of international speakers that gave talks was pretty impressive. Tsutomo Kouno, the designer for LocoRoco (great game) talked about his inspiration for designing the title which was a fascinating insight into what goes into creating a unique hit. The Q&A session was rather awkward as everything had to go through the translator which broke up the flow a little.

Now that's over the next big bit of gaming excitement will be the Wii launch this week. If all goes to plan then Als and I will be joining Kath and Andrew to camp out at Indooroopilly for the midnight launch of the console on Wednesday night. My first console pre-ordered and my first console launch. Can't wait.

Will make games for food

I'll be attending the GCAP conference this Friday and Saturday which should hopefully be a lot of fun. It'll be good to listen to all the key note speakers and *fingers crossed* get some hands on time with any display Wiis they have before the official aussie launch next week.

I also got some personal cards made up on the off chance that I get to do some 'networking'. I've been told it's always good to have something to hand to people you meet at these things. Could be useful for getting numbers from the booth babes... err... maybe not.



Quite happy with how they turned out even if they were cheap prints at Office Works which I needed to cut out myself. Let's hope Atari don't come after me for using the likeness of a Space Invaders alien.

Safe in Brisbane

Yeah yeah I know, promises of consistent updates during our holiday trip may have been grossly exaggerated. Changes to the house and internet connection in Subang meant that blog updates were not possible in spite of my best intentions.

On the bright side we're back in our home now. Two weeks flew by even faster than we'd thought possible and now we find ourselves a little travel weary, rather soft around the edges from good food and extremely happy with the time we managed to spend with friends and family. Parting with family has never been an easy thing for me but at least we have a big party to look forward to in June next year.

As for our holiday diary, I did actually start writing things down in a word document for quick posting upon our imminent return but after the second day this too fell by the wayside. My plan therefore, is to cheat and write retrospectively of our brief getaway if only to share a sliver of our holiday snapshots with an unwilling audience. Stay tuned for updates... backdates... whatever... with tales of tourism, familial introductions and much much food.

You can never go home

Mum had briefly discussed her plans to renovate the house on her last visit to Australia but the full extent of the changes were hard to imagine until we’d seen them. Since mum’s spending most of her time in Kajang with Uncle Wing (or traveling to Australia to see her favourite son) there wasn’t much point in merely extending the house to create more space to clean and look after. Instead she’s managed to divide the house into three self contained units, two downstairs and one large area upstairs for her to use when she decides to stay. This was the house I grew up in so some of these changes were pretty freaky.

BEFORE

AFTER

First big shock came from entering what used to be the front door to the house. The entry way has been walled off obviously to give this first unit the original kitchen and the downstairs bathroom to use. The spot which my piano has occupied for close to 15 years has been transformed into a TV wall and study area. Of course this was just a setup for the next WTF moment.

BEFORE

AFTER

Sleeping in the dining room was definitely an odd sensation for the first couple of nights. I've eaten my share of meals in bed growing up but waking up to see the my reflection in the kitchen mirrors was just gnarly.

BEFORE

AFTER

Even the garden couldn't escape mum's eager renovating mood. Our little flower stand come sitting area has been changed to a pot plant fish pond.



It may be hard to make out from the small picture but there are little guppies from Uncle Wing's pond floating around in there.

BEFORE

AFTER

The first sliding door on the side of the house now leads to the original staircase which still provides access up to the second floor. What was my bedroom upstairs is essentially now a simple study room for mum store room for all the junk I haven't been able to cart over to Australia yet. My poor neglected piano also now adorns this miniature entrance way.

BEFORE

AFTER

Behind the second side door was the biggest change of all. This used to be a maid/guest/karaoke room which wasn't being used much in recent memory. Mum's now sealed it off and pushed the house boundary back to create a second unit that she intends to let out.



Of course mum's infatuation for the open bathroom continues here too.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here you can see how the back of the house has been done away with to accomodate the new kitchen and seating area. The first picture is obviously a little old. The geese (Donald and Daisy) are long gone now and that's Wong and Rudi over for one of my birthdays.



Mum's quite proud of this addition to the garden. The longan tree was about to meet the axe before someone pointed out that the tree was about to bear fruit. Not the best longans I've had but I guess it's better than nothing.

Back in the Motherland

So begins our two week journey of food, family and friends. After dropping our keys off with the kind neighbours (someone has to look after the fish while we’re away), we scooted off in the cab to Brisbane International. We managed to get there way ahead of time for the flight in order to claim duty off Alison’s new camera. I got a little disappointed when I spotted the ixus 65 in the duty free shop for $450 seeing as that’s what we paid for at Harvey Norman. That soon went away when we got our 10% duty back though.



Slightly boring side note, moving to Annerley has effectively shaved off $20 from our normal cab fair. Sure beats trying to wrangle three heavy suitcases onto the Air Train. Hooray for us!

The flight itself to KL was fairly uneventful though all the pills that Alsie ended up popping to help with travel sickness didn’t appear to be too effective. The main thing I did notice in the air was how rude and unprofessional the flight attendants were (we were flying Malaysian Airlines). You’d think that if your job basically involved ensuring that your passengers were happy and provided for then you’d be a little more accommodating to requests. Honestly, this bunch just seemed shocked that a paying customer had the temerity to ask them for something. Very disappointing MAS, we’re definitely flying Singapore Airlines on our next trip.

Arriving in KLIA we filled out our entry forms and proceeded to the checkout counter. It was kinda sad for me as this could potentially be the last time I get to walk through the Malaysian Passport autogate if I intend to apply for Australian Citizenship.



All the other passengers on our flight had rushed off by the time we got out to baggage reclaim. Our two suitcases were waiting for us so we snapped them up and were waved through customs to meet mum and Uncle Wing. We quickly got the hugs and greetings over with in order to move on to the important stuff… food! Uncle Wing took us to a little hole in the wall that he’d heard about which was on the way back from the airport.


Here we are at seven in the morning having our first Malaysian meal of the trip. This is Bak Kut Teh, a claypot stew of pork and tofu in a Chinese herbal tea which is served with rice. The little bowl on the side is filled with intestines in the same tea. Certainly beats the pants off cornflakes and milk any day of the week if you ask me.



After brekkie we stopped by Uncle Wing’s house for a bit of a rest before driving back to Subang. Sitting by the indoor fish pond we got a chance to see how large the carp have grown in the two years since our last trip.

Wiiii!

Electronics Boutique at Garden City have not one but TWO Nintendo Wii consoles for customers to try out. There was a huge crowd waiting to get their grubby hands on the wiimote and nunchuck for some Zelda and Excite Truck action so I didn't get a chance to have a go unfortunately.

Visual impressions are good though, the console is slimmer than I thought it would be and the controllers look small and fit perfectly into your hands. Didn't want to watch too much of the Zelda demo to avoid any potential spoilers so I tried to focus on the players using the controllers which seemed responsive and intuitive.

Good thing we'll be on holiday for the next two weeks so the wait till December 7th doesn't seem quite so bad. I've already got my Wii pre-ordered along with an extra Wiimote (which comes bundled with "Wii Play") and a copy of Zelda Twilight Princess. Can't wait for it.

Travel Plans

Als and I can barely believe it but we'll be flying back to Malaysia and Hong Kong tomorrow! There's nothing quite like having a house full of open suit cases filled with rolled up clothes and (certainly in my case at least) about half a dozen adapters for various electronic gadgetry. Passports ready, air tickets double checked, torrents all queued up and fish food feeders prepared. We're definitely set to dive right into a delicious holiday which will no doubt pass by in a blink.

It's really exciting as this will be the first chance for Alison's parents to see Malaysia and my extended family (eeeek!). Then next weekend we'll all be flying out to Hong Kong to celebrate James and Dora's engagement and meet all of Dora's family. Lots of names to remember and lots of food to eat.

I'll be lugging my laptop along back home so hopefully I'll be able to find an internet connection to post pictures and rants of all the cheap wonderful food we'll be consuming. It's a little weird thinking about a trip to Asia that isn't going to involve the purchase of the latest PDA/Console/MP3 player. Cheap dodgy DVDs on the other hand will be bursting out of our bags on the flight home.

Just one more sleep before we fly.

Click and scribble

Alison made the unfortunate mistake of mentioning a passing desire to look for a digital point and shoot camera this morning. Not one to pass up an opportunity for gadget shopping I immediately scoured the net for reviews for decent P&S cameras that would fit our needs and soon settled on the Canon Powershot SD630 (or the IXUS 65 as it's known here down under).

Bargain hunting for electronics is most definitely the best, clean weekend fun one can have in my book. After playing off three department stores against each other to price match we walked away with $80 off the sticker price and a free camera pouch thrown in to boot. Not bad if I do say so myself.



Alison seems pretty happy with the purchase and I'm going to be pushing home the point that this is her camera which will hopefully encourage her to use it a lot more. The functions are obviously a lot simpler than the EOS 350D and we both like the luxurious 3" view screen. This will also be the first digital camera I've used that supports VGA movies over 30 seconds in length (the maximum is 8 minutes I believe). It's going to be great for short trips, parties and nights out when it would be inconvenient to drag along my DSLR with the whole array of lenses.

Shame we're stuck with the crummy 16MB SD card that comes with the package until we buy a new one or I figure out which of my current devices to scavenge for memory. It's hard to believe that manufacturers are still bundling these ridiculously undersized chips with 6.0 megapixel devices in this day and age.

The original reason to head out to the shops was to get a Wacom tablet for me to work on my game assets and design sketches. We picked up the 4x5 Graphire 4 and it's taking a while to get used to it but it sure is better than a mouse. Should come in useful for photo touch ups and the like too.



Ahh another week's salary well spent. Now to forage the neighbour's bins for food...

Laptops a plenty

One of the perks of my new 'role' and responsibility within the team is that I'll have the chance to work on longer term projects with the option to do so from home. Of course in order to accomplish this I'd need a laptop... which came today!



The new lappie (third in the house now) is a Dell Latitude D820 and is pretty darn sweet. Can't believe it's already trumped my Toshiba in terms of processing power (a Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz compared to a Core Duo 2.0Ghz). Also managed to score 2 gig of RAM somehow so I shouldn't have any problems running large queries on this baby for a while.

Great thing about the Dell is that it's 'only' a 15.4" wide screen so I don't bust my legs when using it on my lap. Battery life is a lot better than the Toshiba too so this makes a great surfing laptop when at home.

Wonder what's next, maybe a MacBook Pro after I retire my Toshiba to PVR duty?

Bowling Green

The development team spent the last two days locked up in a room coming up with new strategic initiatives to improve our processes at work. The structure of the team has been rejigged considerably and hopefully this will give us clearer goals and responsibilities within the department. From a personal perspective I'm looking forward to getting a chance to work on longer term projects and moving away from user support.

After the boring stuff was over and done with we drove down to Myrther bowls club for a fun day in the sun. Most of us made it there without too many hassles... most of us (glances at Matt).

This was the first time I'd every tried lawn bowling and it's a lot better than I thought it would be. Getting the bowls close to the Jack without hitting the gutter or heck even staying in lane would prove tricky though, props to all the old geezers that make it look easy.

Of course some of us in the team had a little more experience than others. Great form there by Uncle Dom.



My moment of glory was hitting the Jack and rolling it along to a cluster of our balls before coming to rest right on it. Much chuffness inspite of the fact that luck was the largest contributing factor.



In the end beginner's luck won the day for us. Well done to fellow team mates Jason and Sarah on flogging the competition.

Tales of Metal Canines

Als and I have just had a most relaxing weekend down around the Byron Bay area. On Friday we drove to Burleigh for breakfast and on to Byron to have a walk on the beach. Even though it's far from peak season I still thought that there were too many people running around and sun baking for my liking. The shops weren't all that impressive either if you ask me so we can't really see what all the fuss with Byron is about.

 

After slurping down a large fruit juice for lunch we continued our drive to find the Tin Dog, a little retreat not too far from Byron Bay which Kath and Andrew had recommended ages ago. Armed with a list of directions we of course managed to get lost and were halfway to Ballina before turning back to get on track.

We couldn't help but notice that the roads were getting thinner and a lot bumpier as we got further into the hinterland. The local drivers were more than happy to terrorise city slickers from Queensland so we were 'nudged' off the road a couple of times during our stay. Thankfully defensive driving and frantic prayer were sufficient for us to get to our destination in one piece. 

The accomodation was quite lovely with big rooms, fresh biscuits and friggin fantastic breakfasts all included. It wasn't too hard for us to hang loose and just relax.

 

Putting our tourist hats on we drove around the local area to visit Minyon Falls (deadly driving required), Mullumbimbi (dangerous driving at night involved) and Bangalow (grab the steering wheel and hold on). There wasn't all that much to see at the falls or in town but boy was the food good. The other highlight of trip was being able to see all the animals. We must have looked like yokels to everyone else but I thought it was like a domestic safari. Alison even got to pet the Tin Dog's resident cow Sesame.

 

On Saturday morning I decided it would be a great idea to get out of bed at four in the morning to drive down to Byron Bay lighthouse to watch the sunrise and take some pictures. Shame that we weren't the only ones that thought this would be a good idea so we were jostling elbows with other tourists to get a good spot on the railing. At least cutting our sleep short was worth the wait and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise over the sea. Interesting point of trivia, this lighthouse is the eastern most point in Australia and the local community congregated there during the Millennium celebrations to welcome the year 2000 to the country.

 

Sunday morning and we had the ceremonial exchange of presents. I received a jumbo bottle of smelly liquid (Armani Mania) and some slippers. Alsie got yet another boring ring on cheap discount.

 

After our second scrumptious breakfast we had to make a move back to Brisbane. We drove up to Mt Tambourine on the way back just to avoid the monotonous Pacific Highway but were somewhat disappointed with the scenery and shops. Well rested and fed I guess we're now ready to face another week back at work. Next holiday to look forward to will be Malaysia and Hong Kong in November. Bring it on!

Wow... really?

Lucky days! Our money woes are over now that we've been informed of our winning ticket worth 315,810 euros in an international lottery... from Spain... that we never entered...



As nice as it was to temporarily contemplate what it would have been like to pay off our mortgage in one fell swoop, this dream is not to be

Something that I might actually have a chance in winning (should swine take flight) is the new Canon photo competition. Winning a new EOS 400D would be pretty cool but I'd be stoked just to get $1500 to spend on new lenses and a decent flash. Heck, $25000 as a grand prize to go around the world taking pictures isn't anything to snort at either. Alison and I will be heading down to Byron Bay this weekend for our three (count it) year anniversary so hopefully I'll have a chance to take some prize winning snaps. ;)

A rose by any other name

Well, for most of my life I've been introducing myself to people as Sharim Chua. This of course as some of you know isn't actually my real name, legally at least. As far as my passport and the majority of my identification is concerned I'm still stuck with the name of my estranged father; Sharim Putra bin Mohd Shah. Not any longer.

In the interest of getting married next year with a name of my choosing we submitted an application to Queensland's Birth, Deaths and Marriages department to request an official change of name. Of course keeping in line with bureaucratic standards we went through a few iterations of the submission process before achieving the intended result. The clincher was when we received a certificate in the mail for a change of name to "Sharim Putra Chua", all fine and good... except it was for a Mr. Sharim Putra bin Moho Shah. If this seems a little picky then please keep in mind:

• Over four different forms of printed documentation with the correct spelling of my name were included in the original submission
• We had noticed the original error in one of the letters sent to us and we pointed this out to the case officer over the phone AND in writing when we had to resubmit evidence of residency
• The addressed envelope for the certificate today STILL had it spelt as Moho and had obviously been corrected with a black biro before postage

Alison wrote a pretty scathing letter demanding rapid resolution of their mistake. Thankfully they at least got the printing right this time so I guess I'm now officially a Chua and smell just as sweet.



Speaking of roses, Alison was given a rose bush on the wedding we attended last week for being an usher. Against all odds the plant has survived Al's heavy green thumb and started blooming a few days ago. Perfect excuse for me to dig out my much neglected macro lens for a quick play.

Card carrying member

My IGDA membership card came in the mail yesterday. Now I'm officially a game developer wannabe.



To my shame I haven't been working on Elementals all that much over the past month. I blame my lack of focus primarily on playing too much Company of Heroes, which is an absatively fantastic RTS by Relic. I swooned over their previous offering in the real time strategy genre (Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War) and they've taken the game style to staggering heights with CoH. Might have to play a couple more games of skirmish... for research purposes of course...

Music to my ears

A long day at work and late night shopping on Thursday usually results in some form of consumer therapy. Just so happens that David Jones was kind enough to have some of the new, thinner, black 30GB iPods in stock so I was soon parted with my hard earned cash. Now copying the entirety of my music collection over to it which is taking FOREVER!

Can't believe how thin the new iPods have gotten. Shame it's still not a complete video iPod but I guess I can always keep using my Ipaq to watch DivX movies anyway. Video podcasts will be more than enough to keep me happy visually. Probably for the best given the limited battery life during video playback.

We've had to deal with non-stop contruction noise at work which will likely continue for the next six months. At least now I have something to drown the jack hammers out. Rock on!

Conference

Just signed up and registered for the upcoming Game Connect conference that's going to be held in Brisbane. Normally the game conferences are all held in Melbourne but they're trying it in Brissie this year which is great! There'll be international speakers for keynotes along with classes and a careers market for people (like me) who are keen on getting into the Games Industry. It's going to be on the 1st of December which is just a week after we fly back from Malaysia so hopefully work will let me have some time off.

Give him some air

Eeek, turns out the regulator for the air conditioner had shorted out in the car so it had to be replaced. There goes $175 bucks which could have gone towards my "MP3 player for Christmas" fund. Thinking about either Microsoft's new Zune or being boring and forking out for an 80GB iPod. Choices choices.

Oh rusty nail!

The mystery source of our water problem has finally been uncovered.

The plumbers came by during the week and confirmed that our leakage was definitely coming out of the hot water tap in our garage (oh no!) which might have meant that we'd be responsible for paying to fix it (OH NO!!!). Luckily for us our body corporate is actually good for something and covers repairs in the garage (Yay!).



After breaking through the wall to get to the pipes the aforementioned plumbers (who didn't seem to care for mushrooms or jumping around much) discovered that the builders had hammered a nail into the hot water outlet. Doesn't do much for my confidence in the build quality of our home but at least fixing the problem was fairly simple.

Now we just need to get the car air-conditioner repaired... *sigh*

Fish People

We turned down an invitation from Kath and Andrew to browse the fun packed corridors of our local Ikea today with the intention of getting some house cleaning done and more importantly... refraining from expensive purchases for the house. Well the house certainly is cleaner but unsurprisingly we've once again managed to find a way to spend more money on our charming abode. In this case a new aquarium for our happy little fish friends.



Our old aquarium has served us reasonably well for the last two odd years that we've had it. Granted the Jebo has seen it's share of dramas including a melted lid from an overheated fuse and blinking lights from condensation but our fish have lived a content perhaps somewhat cramped existance in it. The latest development however has resulted in the quiet decline of the tank's air filter. Empathic owners that we are we figure our pets would like to continue breathing so it was time to say farewell to the old gal. I mean look at that gunk and rust.



Now no one in our family ever buys something new unless it's an upgrade so I was pretty darn keen to lookout for a bigger, better model while keeping within the spatial constraints of our counter top. Boy did we manage to get one (good price too) and this time we've settled for no less than two filters to suck all the nasties out of it. It even has a plastic plate over the lights to prevent a little condensation from turning our aquarium into an insurance claim.



The transfer was going to be a big one so we thought it best to move the fish to a holding cell temporarily. They weren't too impressed with the accomodation but thankfully they didn't have to stay there too long.



Now they have heaps of space to swim and grow. Yay!