A new scale for a new century.

After doing some yardwork (which involved hacksawing off the ends of trees), I took off my hoody and shoes in preparation for showering off all the leaf-gunk. I took my iPhone out of my pcoket and briefly checked Twitter in case someone had replied to me. They had not, but I spotted a tweet from @punky_and_me with the word "Amazeballs" on it, a word I had used in a tweet the previous day, so I was intrigued and clicked the link. It was a link to the mobile page version of a blog post featuring amazing claymation art from Etsy. I really liked one part, so I went to leave a comment. Tapped "Leave a comment". I typed my comment into the field on the mobile version of the comments page. It asked me what ID I wanted to used, I choose my Google ID then pushed "post". I was then taken to the non-mobile-web version of the comments page with a suddenly-blank comments field. I dutifully retyped my comment, and filled in the Captcha, which was something like "Cohardleb", then pushed "post". However, in the time it took for my finger to go from typing to "post" my iPhone autocorrected "Cohardleb" to "cohabitable". The page then spat me back to the comments page, where I had to carefully re-enter a new Captcha, aptly "RitardSm", then pressed post again. I was the redirected to a Google log-in page where I needed to enter my email address and password. Then hit submit.

Finally, it posted. This whole thing took 7-9 minutes of frustrated pecking at my phone. For one two-line comment.

I reached a 6.5 on the Tanjabraun Scale of Anger-At-Technology (similar to the Rounsaville scale for measuring racism).

So far, in this dimension, the only event which has caused a full 10.0 Tanjabrauns was a left-ward swipe on the trackpad of a Sony Vaio laptop being interpreted as "back" on a browser, in which sat a 10-page blog post that it had taken the better part of 2 hours to write.

What I Got (continued)

WATCHING Forgot to mention a few more podcasts. Despite my dislike of their myriad of convention shows, iFanboy is still going strong since leaving Revision3. Their shows on Frank Miller and Starman have been my favourites lately. LifeHacker is one I've been trialing, and is nothing but good so far. It's basically tips on how to streamline and nerd up your life and work, such as making a cord-free office, making an emergency lamp out of a tuna can, or a laptop bag out of your hoodie. PennPoint is handy because when I watch it minimised, it's like listening to a radio show hosted by Penn Jillette. One of the few podcasts where video ain't necessary, which is good when your battery is low, or you have Twittering to do.

APP-ING I've been leaning away from iPhone games lately, using my phone much more for media and web-based stuff, though one has grabbed my attention: ShapeShift may look like a Bejewelled clone, and maybe it is, but it's highly addictive. My only gripe is that it's not timed, but turn-based, and you don't get any bombs (the only things that'll stop a game) until at least 8-10 minutes of gameplay. So until that point there is absolutely no challenge. It's also a battery-suck. I've also been playing a bit of Fruit Ninja, since they updated and added Arcade mode, which really changes up the action, adding power-ups and rewarding you for creativity. I've long been a user of Words With Friends, sometimes running as many as 20 games at a time. This has become its downfall, though, as the sheer number of games combined with an instant rematch after each win or loss has rendered the joy of winning obsolete. As it doesn't matter, then my motivation for playing is lost. I've branched out into its cousin, Hangin' With Friends, but it's not grabbing me as much. The random nature of Hangman means you either get the word straight away or you have no idea and flail about getting things wrong. I therefore don't feel accomplished when I get something, I just feel lucky. Social-media-wise, SoundTracking has been my latest download. It's free, and it is to music what Instagram is to photos. You can have to grab what's playing around you (handy in bars or music shops) or grab what's on your iPhone and post it with a comment. The big honking downside? Nobody's using it. At least, no one that I know. That means the service only exists to post songs to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Without the rich community that Instagram has, I don't think it'll stick with me long. Speaking of Instagram, it's become one of my primary ways of interacting with my social networks. You guys think I tweet a lot? My Instagram feed is 2-3 times as full. However, my love of skylines and clouds has gotten me tons of likes from people I don't know, but annoys the crap of people I actually know. So swings and roundabouts. Speaking of Apps, I still can't find a good blogging app for iPhone that'll let me post photos to Blogger the way I normally do, and it shits me.

READING I've been digging through the pile of books I've had since Christmas and cleared a few off my list. I finally took the plunge and read The Gunslinger by Stephen King. Despite high hopes, I did not like it. I found the language too florid and the characters inscrutable, taking actions I did not understand and they did not explain. I was waiting for the actions to make sense, but no one gave any explanation for what they were doing apart from it's "what I must do." Great. Thanks. One I had no preface to was iBoy by Kevin Brooks. It's a kid from the housing projects outside of London who has an iPhone hit his head from a high height and gets superpowers. Yep. Initially it's just an internal processor and all the knowledge of the InterWebz, but then it extends to a personal forcefield, electrical powers, telekenesis and, well, whatever the plot demands from the scene. No upper limit or explanation is given for these powers, and he essentially runs around beating up gang members until the finale, which by that point I did not care about. It was not a good book. The third volume of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, and the series is starting to bug me. It tends to alternate between wonderful, funny and interesting stories, and then perhaps one issue in three will be terrible. It's inconsistant stuff like that that I want to push through to get to the good stuff. Example? A sentient police dog that Spider castrated during a riot seeks revenge upon him. It's exactly as bad as it sounds. But the rest is so good! Argh. However, I am tempted to try the Spider Jerusalem Experiment. For one day, from early morning to late at night, to watch television. To do nothing but watch free-to-air television. Take it all in. I think it'll either result in some amazingly interesting blogness or my brains running out of my ears. I have 8 or so issues of The Word sitting waiting to be perused. i should really do something about that.

LISTENING I've found a cheap CD shop (10 CDs for $50) near my work, so I've resupplied my musicness. Here's a list because I couldn't be bothered keeping up the format of my own blog entry:

• Pulp - Hits (I don't know why I keep buying Pulp albums. I think I need to admit that I like the idea of pulp more than I like the actual music.)
• Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History (discovered this through Soundtracking, fun electro-indie pop stuff. Highly catchy)
• Grinderman 2 (Grind Harder? Electric Boogaloo? More strange and interesting stuff from Nick Cave and the Dirty Three. However, like with the first album, I'm only keeping about half of it in my rotation.)
• Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards (Indie. But not hipsterish. I like it. Next question.)
• Muse - Absolution (More epic soundscapes. Sounds great through big headphones. May lead to slight air guitar)
• Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly Angry Mob (cementing the fact that yes, I really like the Kaiser Chiefs. They are fun and I like them.)
• Siouxsie - Mantaray (I've had three tracks (Into A Swan, Loveless & Drone Zone) from this album forever. I think I got the best tracks, as the rest of the album isn't all that.)
• She Wants Revenge - This Is Forever (more of the same from the Joy-Division-sounding darkwave-post-punk-electro duo. This is not a bad thing. This is a good thing.)
• The Puppini Sisters - The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo/Betcha Bottom Dollar (Andrew-sisters-1940s-style-close-harmony-singing mixing covers of Beyonce and the Bangles with old school swing hits. Addictive and wonderful.)
• The Bravery - The Sun And The Moon Complete (What's this? a two-disc set with the same songs on each? It's the original garage-sounding 2007 album on Disc-1, and the same songs redone and re-recorded with a more electronic synthy twist on Disc 2)
• The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes (60s Girl Group tribute act. Pure summer pop goodness. Check out Pull Shapes, as mentioned in Jamie McKelvie's Phonogram: The Singles Club)
• ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - So Divided (these guys continue to impress me, though seemingly no two of their songs are remotely the same in tone or genre. Lush and layered sounds that sound fantabulous through headphones or good speakers)
• Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (have only listened to a bit of this but it seems like a return to form)

There! That'll do it. That should give you something to do for a bit.

What I Got (Watching)

New look blog! Or at least, until I decide to change it again. The background seems to be the hardest thing to decide on. So expect further changes, as I am indecisive.

I've had all these posts rushing around in my head, so I'm going to try and combine them into a rapid-fire short-form-list of what I've been watching/reading/listening/Apping.

Is Apping a word? It is now.

Warning. Excessive linking ahead.

WATCHING With my longer commute, I've finally been delving into things I've had on the HDD for months, including Transformers Animated, Justice League, Teen Titans, and Transformers Prime. All are highly recommended, for different moods. T:A is arc-based, like Justice League, so it's great to watch the stories unfold when you can watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row. TT is much MUCH more episodic and far less serious (they even have a special Japanese version of the awesome PuffyAmiYumi theme song as a signal that it'll be a silly show). Transformers Prime is as if Beast Wars, War For Cybertron, and the Transformers film series had a crazy LAN Party/threesome which made beautiful shiny robotic baby, and then had it raised with the G1 series as a nanny, which is a strange image and I want you all to forget it. Thing is, I know the first half-season of ALL these shows are not the best. Persevere. They will Grow The Beard. Promise. Also, seeing all these awesome shows has made one I previously loved look a bit shallow. Batman Beyond was always my favourite of the DCAU, and compared to Justice League, frankly most of it seems a bit shallow (but I could listen to the theme song all day long). Oh, and the first season of Batman: The Animated Series sucked. Like a lot. At home, since we've run out of Castle, Modern Family, & Community (which we still love), and Big Bang Theory, Chuck and 30 Rock (which we're starting to wane on, due to Flanderization and Seasonal Rot), we've been looking into movies. The arrival of Netflix Instant streaming into our house caused an evening of Emma/How To Marry A Millionaire (which showcased examples of Politeness Judo & Ship-To-Ship Combat in the former and MegaNekko in the latter). It's also caused me to find the Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic. It's also caused an overabundance of choice, which has led to occasional BSOD moments when deciding what to watch. Happily, there's always Firefly. My podcast watching has slowed ever since I took a few weeks off watching Podcasts while trying to sort out my music library. Then they piled up and suddenly I have 14 episodes of FrameRate, 10 of NSFW, 42 of the Totally Rad Show and 17 Diggnations. Funnily enough, I was about to keep up with Destructoid, Appjudgment, Death Battle, and Bytejacker due to their shorter run times. Though Bytejacker is now on hiatus, which makes me sad.

Oh, crap, that took 34 minutes to write. I might need to pick this "What I Got" thing up later, as I must get ready for work.

Huge Huge Huge Reductions! Never Pay Full Price Again!

People who aren't funny.

I think the movie Funny People represents an actual, measurable infinity. Not a theoretical infinity, but an actual infinity. So even now as I am writing about watching Funny People, I am still, in fact, watching Funny People.

This belief is due to the fact that I attempted to watch this film when Tanja was in the hospital. I got about 25 minutes in, then switched to something else. I've re-added it to my iPod a few times since then, but never got more than 6 or 7 minutes further. The sheer awkwardness of every conversation made everything seem to take forever.

The other night I sat down, with it playing behind the window on my computer while I did things like fixed eBay listings and read TVTropes. After an age, I glanced up and saw that I still had a fucking hour and a half left and gave up.

Well, I killed that particular dragon tonight. I watched an hour and a half straight of unattractive, awkward-looking people who couldn't have a conversation without trying to make it into a routine or a cliche or something so it's all just boring (it was like I was watching The Room again!).

I get the idea: comedians make jokes to hide that they have difficulty making real connections with people and most people are jerks. Your movie's still not funny or interesting.

But at 2-and-a-half-hours? Fuck me, is it long.

That being said, I completely agree with this.

PS: if I'm reading a book on my Kindle, then I read a bit on my iPhone Kindle App, my Kindle asks me if I want to jump to the page I just finished reading on my iPhone. Isn't technology neat?

Why I Hate Firefox

It's very simple. It will occasionally, for no reason at all, without warning, not work. I'll load up Firefox, click on a link from my favourite toolbar, or type something into Google, or whatever, and I'll get this response:

Not just once, not twice, but three times I have to reclick the link (refreshing just reloads the error page). Then it remembers that, oh right, it's meant to be a web browser and yes, these are websites, so I'd better let Lucas browse them.

This has shown up in the last 3 revisions, and each time I hope they'll fix it. They don't. And worse, it won't happen all the time. Just every 6th or 7th link, and it brings my experience grinding and crashing to a halt.

I want to support open source developers and all that but god DAMN this is such a basic thing.

Further anger? MOV files. They look great playing at 720p on the Quicktime player, but no video editor I can find, including Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere Pro, or any of the free things I find can edit the suckers. The minute you try to speed up or slow them down, the framerate goes to hell and the video gets choppy. Any converter you get lowers the framerate. Argh.

Technology, why must it be two steps forward and one step back?

PS and by the by: Anamanaguchi's Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game soundtrack makes even the crappiest typing seem like epic haxxoring. Here are some snippets in this trailer:

Whoo-kak!

(or however you write the Harvey Birdman scene-changing noise)

(and no this is totally not a post created solely for the fact that I said I was not going to do two cooking Sunday posts in a row okay maybe it was but you can bite me)

So I now have an iPhone 4! Which is nice. It's my first iPhone, though I pretty much used my iPod Touch like an iPhone. And at the risk of getting called an Apple Fanboy (by Craig and Adrian, mostly), I love it. It's just so freaking easy to do things. It's actually so easy that I feel like I'm doing something wrong, or missing a step, or breaking a rule. My Samsung phone constantly felt like it was fighting against me when I tried to do things like upload pictures, check my facebook or even log into things. The camera is brilliant and takes better and sharper pictures than my last camera, despite being 3 megapixels less. I'm loving all the vintage camera and time-lapse Apps that let me use my phone camera the get me effects that previously took a tripod, patience, software, and lots of time.

Look, I could go on, but I'm mentally censoring myself to try and avoid the anti-hype rage-hate-backlash (that needs an acronym.... AHRHB?). Look, it's a device that works. And I love it for that.

(I just checked. The Scene Change sound for Harvey Birdman is written "Whoo-KOW!)

One of those guys

I hate to say it, but I have become one of those annoying people with a new laptop (the Alienware M11x with the i5, for those whom I haven't assaulted yet). I have all of its stats memorised and can rattle them off at the drop of a hat. I'm rediscovering things I haven't used in months or years become doggone it, they WORK now.

Things I like:

• The Alienware FX gimmick: the keyboard, running lights, logos and everything are all back lit. First day it was red, next day blue, and today it's gold. I know it's gimmicky, but it both looks and feels cool.
• Speaking of the keyboard, it's compact, but large enough for me to type without the button-mash typos I had with my eeePC or the too-light-touch typos I had with Tanja's Vaio.
• It's got bones. With 4 gigs of RAM, and 1 gig of dedicated graphics card memory, I can run Borderlands and the Just Cause 2 demo on the absolute highest setting and full resolution with a very fast frame rate. It's the closest Borderlands experience to playing it on the PS3.
• The system installed, can run, but actively rejected Command & Conquer Generals (due to stupidly low resolution on that 7-year old game). This is a good thing because it forces me to give other games a go.
• It runs Windows 7 Home Premium, which allowed me to effortlessly network between the Vista-running main PC and my lappy. This means that all the nearly-a-terabyte movies, TV shows and music are all shared to the laptop wirelessly. Combined with the HDMI-out (which makes my previous to-TV-VGA-Connection look like a pile of puke [/Moe]), this means I can put of the TV, in full resolution, anything I download without transferring anything.
• Battery life. Due to the multiple-settings mode (accessible by keyboard shortcut), I can have it running at full-power for about 2 hours without a cord, at mid-power for about 5, and at low power for who-knows how long.

The only cons I've found so far:

• Since the two mice we have in the mouse have the old serial connectors, I've been stuck with trackpad until I get a USB mouse. I eventually unplugged the wireless mouse receiver from the main compy and I'm using that, but it's a temporary solution.
• I tried installing Windows Virtual PC now that I have Windows 7, but it seems the Home Premium version that I have doesn't support it. I need either Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate and upgrades start at 200 bucks. Bugger. I may just have to weigh it and not use the one program I'd need it for.

App-licable.

A friend just got an iPhone, and I offered to recommend some aps to him. These are my go-to apps. I do experiment now and again, but these are what I come back to:

App Name	App Type	App SubType	Comments
iExpenseIt	Finance	Expense tracker	I use this for tracking the money I spend on shirts and cocktails and stuff (where I need to know it balances out). Also useful when you think "It's the end of the week. Where's all my money?"
Worms	Game	Action	Just like the Game Boy, DS, or whatever version with all weapons and levels.
Space Deadbeef	Game	Arcade-Style Shooter	Side-scrolling shooter. Fun times.
Spore	Game	RPG	A mini-version of the real thing.
Flight Control	Game	Skill-based	A very popular Air Traffic Control game. Far more fun than it sounds.
Dactyl	Game	Skill-based	Very quick I-need-to-kill-5-minutes game. Defuse the bombs in time!
TapDefense	Game	Tower Defence	A good (free) beginner Tower Defence game, just enough to get you hooked.
FieldRunners	Game	Tower Defence	The next step, with place-anywhere towers and path-building.
GeoDefense	Game	Tower Defence	The big daddy. Tower Defence with Geometry-Wars-style effects and a crazy difficulty level
Star Defense	Game	Tower Defence	Tower Defence in 3d on a globe. A good game for when you're sick of Geodefence kicking your ass.
KarmaStar	Game	Turn-based Strategy	Cute, quirky stat-based Strategy game involving dice-rolls & attacks.
I Can Haz Cheezburger	Humour	Picture Feed	For all your daily LOLs.
Urbanspoon	Lifestyle	Restaurant Finder	Great for picking where to eat. You can also use the randomise feature to come up with something out of nowhere.
Stanza	Reader	Book Ereader	Reads PDF e-books (for free). Also can have new (pirated) ebooks uploaded from a desktop app.
iVerse	Reader	Comic eReader	Actually a series of apps, each one representing an issue of a comic. Some free, some not.
Ebay	WebApp	eBay	Just what it says on the tin.
Facebook	WebApp	Facebook	Just what it says on the tin.
Twitteriffic	WebApp	Twitter	My go-to Twitter app, until the 3.0 Software update made it go screwy on the iPod touch. Easy to use, plus easy re-tweeting and marking for later.
Twitterfon	WebApp	Twitter	Twitter app, part two. Visually similar to Twitteriffic, but actually works on the touch. Also has auto-twitpic, auto-friend-name-add, and other nifty features.
TweetDeck	WebApp	Twitter	Organises tweets into columns. Some like it, but it's not my favourite.

 

 

 

 

Has this happened to anyone else?

Fact: I read the Narnia books in the correct order, but was told it was the WRONG order by everyone I knew. I knew it was:
1 The Magician's Nephew
2 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3 The Horse and His Boy
4 Prince Caspian
5 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6 The Silver Chair
7 The Last Battle
This was the order they were in when I found them in the tiny elementary school library of McAdam Avenue Elementary School. All my friend and even some teachers told me that LW&W was first, and I would agree, but know in my heart they were wrong. Of, course, I know now that there is dispute over publication order versus chronological order (see the Wiki). When the film came out, with all of its CGI "glory", I had the urge to reread the series, as it had completely lost me in the end, with its chucking the story in favor of ham-fisted religious metaphor (the ape, the donkey, and the doorway). Also, I read the Neil Gaiman short story "The Problem of Susan" which disturbed the hell out of me.

Fact: When I read the Dark Is Rising series, I skipped the second book, The Dark Is Rising, which introduced the hero character of Will Stanton. In fact, one of my friends had only read that book, and so when he was explaining it to me, we suddenly caught on that it was the same series. As I skipped the intro of Our Hero, when he shows up, I though "Who's this jumped-up kid and why should I care?" I bring it up because I've rented-and-iPodded the Adaptation Decay that is The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (which tries too hard to be Harry Potter and my GOD must they have gotten a sponsorship from a flat-screen TV company because there is one in nearly every scene).

Fact: Now that I've gone from my 80 gig iPod Video to my 32 gig iPod touch, the video quality and sound are leaps and bounds better, but the music playback doesn't have the volume, depth or oomph that it does on the Video. Strange.

Autonoumous Paintball Sentry Gun

I wonder how many times this thing could shoot Ted in the mouth.

Demos and Trials

Last night we had some people over for one of our dinner/movie marathon nights. The theme this time was Hellboy and tacos. I made beef tacos, chipotle roast pork tacos, and chicken fajitas. Booze flowed freely. We warmed up with the Predator Rifftrax and then rolled on to both Hellboy movies, the second in Blu-ray (whose audio we had trouble controlling; the dialogue was quiet, but the music and effects were loud enough to shake the walls!). We all got very sleepy as the night moved on. I totally blame the food. Fun was had by all.

So this morning, Tanja goes up to the mountains to see her ma, and I get a bit of a lie-in (and checking of my Twitter feed from bed, hee). I decided after a morning of updating album art on iTunes (yes, I'm that kind of user) I'll check out the demos I downloaded for my PS3. So, my thoughts, in my patented bullet-point-style:

[-]Bioshock: Adored the story and the look and the steam-punk feel of the game, but hated, HATED the game play. I ended up using all my special weapon energy just trying to stun someone or all my bullets trying to get a headshot with the revolver to the point where I fall back on the basic wrench weapon 9 times out of 10. It does however, make a satisfying *thwack* when you wallop someone. And like I twittered, wrench don't run out. I might see if Tommy or someone has this for me to borrow.

[-]Kane & Lynch: Dead Men: third-person shooters have never been my forte, but this one lost my interest immediately by not letting me invert the y-axis, so i couldn't FIND the enemies, let alone hit them. Oh, and the squad AI? Boneheaded. NEXT!

[-]Soul Caliber 4: Very pretty! However, as I explained to Ted yesterday, I haven't enjoyed buying a fighting game since Mortal Kombat 2. Possibly because I don't play much versus, so it's just me bashing my head against the single-player mode. This was the problem I had when I (briefly) owned Virtua Fighter 4. Might rent this (along with DC vs MK) but would never buy.

[-]Lemmings: 2-d Lemmings! But it's so hard to play without a mouse and I'm not buying one just for this.

[-]Timeshift: ZOMG did I love this. It's a shooter, but you have the ability to stop, slow, and reverse time. Think Prince of Persia with guns. You can take the gun out of someone's have, move behind him, and see him realise what's happened before you cap him. Also, the guns are great, in particular, the sniper-crossbow, which fires glowing arrows that explode after a 1-second delay. So you get to see the guy react before he explodes into a pinkish mist. All the explosions look shiny in the slow-mo as well. I was shocked Gamespot gave it so low a rating (6.5!) when it's one of those rare shooter that I actually have fun playing. Definietly looking for the full version.

[-]Warhawk: See previous entry. I've got the full version winging its way to me now, but I could have happily played the demo forever.

[-]Wipeout HD: Gorgeous-looking and smooth-as, and I was a HUGe fan of Wipeout on the Saturn, but I just can't seem to get into this. Also, Ted is better than me at this/all video games ever.

[-]Dead Space: Creepy, scary look, caused a funny aneurysm moment when I "killed" something, only to have it cut me in half as I walked past its "corpse". Ted response: "Yeah, those'll do that." Not sure I could stand a whole game of it, though.

[-]Lego Batman: Cute, funny, like the look of it, but ugh, jump puzzles. Freakin' jump puzzles. Never mind. And only 1 punch and 1 throw button? That's it for combat?

[-]Pixeljunk: Eden: Very wierd, and seemingly simple game. Not sure if it's hooked me.

[-]Killzone 2: Blah. Boring shooter.Guns are so "accurate" that YOU have to be a staggeringly good shot to hit ANYTHING. Although Brammall at work just thinks I don't like it because I suck at it.


Oh, and without warning, Firefox has gone back to have the "open background tab" option, and opening a new tab when I click a link and write in an address. Thank Moby.

Hell of a Day

Today might have been one of the greatest days ever. Like for serious.

Wake up, don't have to be at work. Good start.

Have two cups of coffee and peanut butter of morpeth sourdough bread.

Head out with Tanja to Powerhouse Museum to see the Star Wars exhibit. Awesome. Got tons of pictures of the ship models.

Afterwards, walking in the 39.5-42 degree day to the Heritage Belgian Bier Cafe. Have a porterhouse steak, medium-rare, chips and salad with a Hoegaarden & a Kwak.

Head out from there, and go to Myer to look at outdoor furniture (we've been planing to use some of our wedding present money to get an outdoor lounge). Found one we like. It's $300 cheaper than usual. Buy it.

Meanwhile, I start explaining to Tanja how I've been thinking of trading in my PS2 and all my games for a discount towards a PS3. She inquires if I've done the research. I have, saying JB Hifi has the best deal because you get an HDMI cable with it. We go to JB Hifi. I show her.

"Well," says she, "you should probably get it now. You've got some good PS2 games, I'd hate to see you get rid of them."

So I bought a PS3. With Little Big Planet (it's so cute!) and GTA4 (when you hit something high speed, you fly out the windshield like in Tom & Jerry).

On the way home, walking back in a now-cool evening (lovely breeze) we bought a six-pack of Stella. Tanja made pasta and we watched the first bit of our new season of the Wire.

In the running for best day ever. Hell, it's in the top 3.

Bliss.

Freedom from pain! Yes, friends, after 35 days straight of headaches, I am free from pain. It came to a head Friday when I woke up with a absolute humdinger. The entire left side of my head felt like it was going to fall off (and judging by how much I was hurting, I wouldn't have minded if it did).

So I went to the Doctor in the morning, making a 9:30 appointment. Got there at 9:25, but I didn't actually get to see the doctor until after 10. Why do I bother making appointments? So the doc sees me, and says I should get some physio. Okay, fine.

I call the University Sports physio that fixed my whiplash. They're closed until January for Christmas. Same situation with a few other places I call, some until February, even. February! That's a nice long Christmas break! So I get a recommendation from a workmate of Tanja's for a place on Erskineville road. I go there, but they’re all booked. I sign up for the cancellation list and just make it home when I get a call that there’s an opening.

So here’s what the physio guy said was wrong with me: all the little muscles that connect my neck to the base of my skull are all knotted up and scrunched together. These snarls put pressure on the bones of my skull, keeping them from their natural movement and locking them together. The lack of natural movement causes a build-up of pressure, which causes pain and headaches. Think tectonic plates locking together and causing LA-rattling earthquakes.

So he, using some high-pressure massage, pushed back the snarled neck muscles one at a time, letting them fall back into place where they usually sit. I was sore the rest of the day from the manipulations, but as of Saturday, fine! It may not be permanent, and I may need some remedial physio, but I am one relieved guy.

I am also a relieved guy with a new 32 gig iPod touch! Tanja got it for me for Christmas. It’s got Wifi, web browser, pop-up keyboard, it takes applications from the App store, and has a huge widescreen video screen. I like it a lot. I’m now in the process of streamlining my 13000 song play list to fit on the new iPod and phew! I have a lot of stuff I’ve never listened to.

Computer names

As we are now a household with 5 computers, I’ve been reflecting on computer names. The PC, which we keep in the spare room, I originally named Hex. The iPod Mini I got around the same time was christened Hex Jr (and when its battery died, its replacement was Hex III, on to my current iPod Video, which is Hex IV). Despite this moniker, the PC is constantly referred to as “The big computer” since the introduction of laptops to the house, even thought it’s not that big. It’s predecessor, Tanja’s original huge clunky silver NEC laptop (which both of us used as the primary PC until the CD drive died, the spacebar stopped working and we got very mad at it) was nameless, except for “the laptop” or, “the old clunker”. After Dad visited, he left me the largish laptop that work had given him, which, though problematic-to-downright-useless with anything internet-based, was great for playing Command and Conquer or Age of Mythology. This one, even 9 months on, is still referred to as “Dad’s laptop”. Tanja has her sexy little Vaio laptop (which is currently being fixed for a battery fault, and she’s suffering from the lack), which she’ll refer to as her “little one” or her “Vaio”. My eeePC’s name, assigned when I booted it up for the first time is “The Guide” (inspired by a custom designed eeePC I found a picture of, which had been laser-etched with “Don’t Panic” on top and rigged to open and work like a book). I thought it fitting, considering I take the bloody thing everywhere and most often use it for reading comics.

 

So. To tally up, we have

 

• The Big Computer/Hex
• The Clunker
• Dad’s Laptop
• Tanja’s Little One/Vaio
• The Guide

 

And to think, I used to think a house with two TVs was extravagant.

 

Lucas Brown | Team Senior - 42

Using the Force in one to one communication