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...