Archived: May 2002
| Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
|
|
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
|
|
|
|
25 |
|
|
|
29 |
|
|
|
«
»
Mmm. Last minute holiday chaos. But for purely samaritan reasons, I present this community service announcement: it's my birthday soon!
In other news, I finally got the DreamweaverMX demo, so I'll be playing with that when I get bored over in Melbourne. Oh and I'm a big fan of Flurry, a screensaver for OS X that's nice and simple. Dig it.
And lastly, if anybody knows somewhere in Melbourne with cheap digital camera supplies (I need a bigger pc card and a pc slot adapter thingy) let me know and I'll check it out. Over and out.
Posted on Friday, May 31, 2002
|
Life
|
1 Comments
I'm now going on holiday in about 48hours. Damn. That went fast.
The good news is that I'm slowly getting organised. I've got accommodation pretty much sorted, which is a bit of a relief. I'm probably going to spend a few days in a hotel at the start, just generally relaxing (whatever that is) and de-stressing after a pretty rollercoaster 18 months. Whew.
After that I'll be staying with some great people and seeing more of the sights of the big smoke. They tell me they live right near a 24-hour supermarket. 24 hours! Imagine! All my midnight cravings will be satisfied. Just a thought: why are Perth's trading laws so damn antique? Did we pick them up at an op shop after Melbourne ditched them in favour of 24/7 shopping goodness? Anyway.
I'm also hoping to catch up with a few people to check out all the spidey excitement, and I'll hoping to catch up with Bron and Pea for a coffee (or hot chocolate). Mmm. If anybody else wants to catch up, let me know :]
Oh, and I'm hoping to blog my trip. I usually collect all sorts of stuff when I'm travelling, and end up throwing it all in a diary and never finish it (Matt and April can back me up on this). So I figure if I can just tap away while I'm going, it's all a lot more likely. I'll be doing most of it on my laptop, so even if this site's not updated every day, the next time I'm near a net connection I'll get all the news up here. Keep an eye out.
Posted on Thursday, May 30, 2002
|
Melbourne 2002
|
9 Comments
"In fact, we may have broadcast the only dialog about the (Heisenberg) uncertainty principle in network sitcom history... the Professor loses at the horse track when his horse is narrowly beat out in a "quantum finish". He complains... "No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!"
"Our hope is that, although such material will fly by most people unnoticed, it might make die-hard fans of the people who do appreciate it."
— David X. Cohen, executive producer and head writer of Futurama, interviewed in Front Wheel Drive
Posted on Tuesday, May 28, 2002
|
|
1 Comments
I've been working a new blog for my trip to Melbourne so I spent Sunday morning digging around for travel-related pics. One of the things I dug up at home is a safety card from a British Airways 747 (courtesy Matt, from memory).
I know these things are a cliche that's done to death, but that's never stopped me before. So here we go.
That's a very unconvincing drag queen on the left. Do BA know Groucho Marx is on board? And that woman in front of him looks a little too interested in the safety card.
(a) she's a zombie. (b) in that first one the lifejacket looks disturbingly like a weapon.
Okay. I'm done.
Posted on Tuesday, May 28, 2002
|
|
4 Comments
Okay. There's no easy way to explain this.
Last year, when I bought my PowerBook, I had to make a few calls to Apple Australia to check on its progress. Their phone answering system has voice 'talent' that's a little more husky that I'd have expected for sweet fluffy Apple. Think new iMac, then listen to the voice of Apple Australia (14sec, 110K)
So here's the thing. We've gone hoarse from imitating this around the office. Record your version of that clip as an mp3, and post a comment here linking to it. If you've got a memory as bad as mine, here's a script.
Continue reading "i love it when you talk husky to me"
Posted on Monday, May 27, 2002
|
|
12 Comments
A client faxed some changes to a website through to us over the weekend, having printed out the pages from the site and marked up the changes on that. One of the pages had something crossed out, and 'PTO' written next to it.
I turned over the page to have a look. The faxed page. Doh!
Posted on Monday, May 27, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet
I've got an admission to make: until yesterday I still had a gift voucher from my birthday. Which makes it almost a year old. It's not that I don't want to spend it, it's just that (a) it's for a shopping centre that's a bit of a drive away, so I just never really made it out there during shopping hours, and (b) I just haven't been in a shopping mood most of this year.
Which I'm hoping to fix in Melbourne, and finally buy some nice funky clothes. Mmmmm.
So I finally spent the voucher yesterday, making the trek, and ended up buying two cds: the Ministry of Sound's Chillout Session 2 double, and Moby's new one (18). Haven't had much of a chance to listen to Chillout yet (downside of sharing a house with guys who sleep in) but Moby's new cd is interesting.
It feels kinda like it should be a second disc from Play. Very similar actually, which is a change from moby's usual genre-skipping releases. Mind you that's just a reaction to my first listen; I'll have to listen to it more and see.
Posted on Sunday, May 26, 2002
|
|
1 Comments
It's goin' off in the heart: I love the U2 Elevation DVD. It's beautiful. Granted it's not their best performance as a band, but it's an amazing show, and I wish I could've seen it. If I'd known they weren't coming to Australia, I'd have considered a well-timed holiday...
::::
News from work: Our new websites are finally live! Talk about a labour of love. It's such a relief to let them loose on the web at last. Let me know what you think, and if you stumble across any bugs.
::::
Finally they know: Collected the mail at work today, and got a nice surprise. I've finally made it on to the B&O mailing list. They're not that fast at taking a hint. Or maybe they know that while I'd love to have a new B&O, it's not all that likely right now. Nyeh. Either way I'm a happy man.
::::
Hearing loss, schmearing schmoss: Music should be played loud. Music DVDs especially. Apologies to my neighbours.
Posted on Friday, May 24, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet
Last night I (finally) sat down and watched Startup.com, the documentary tracing the rise and fall of a dot-com in the middle of the tech stocks boom.
It was all very interesting, watching it with the benefit of knowing it's all going to crumble, and also comparing it to my experience running a small business in the tech industry. I'm hoping to watch it again to really grasp all the business details (the downside of the pure, no-narration documentary style is that it's that much harder to understand whats going on).
From an initial viewing it looks like they made some mistakes, and took some big gambles; neither of which is surprising in the tech-crazy climate of the time. But my gut reaction is that they had some fundamental flaws in their business plan, and more importantly, 233 employees!? I'm not that clear on their model, but that seems a little excessive.
Footnote: Tom's got some follow-up notes at www.govworks.com
Posted on Friday, May 24, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet
I'm not really thestamp collecting type, but I love the new lighthouse series from Australia Post. We got two on some mail from a client the other day, and damn they look good. Right down to the silver overlay of the map, which doesn't come across too well in photos.
I'm not so overly sold on some of the older ones we've gotten stuck with in 100-stamp boxes at work. Wild Babies was really, urgh, I can't think of the word. From there anything's an improvement, but Desert Birds wasn't bad. But the Queen on stamps? It's all bit British, isn't it?
Posted on Thursday, May 23, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet
Stopped past the little supermarket on the way home (can it legally be called 'Little Bucks' when everything's more expensive?) and while I was waiting for the eftpos to clear, I was talking to the girl at the counter. She looked tired. "Long day?" Yes, she said. This continued while we waited; then I picked up my stuff and started walking out.
I: "Have a good night"
Her: "Thanks. Goodbye"
I: "Bye"
Her: "Seeya. Have a good night too."
I: "Thanks. Bye"
And I think there was at least another two after that, as I was walking out the door. I was tempted to walk out of sight, then run back across the doorway and have the last laugh. But then I remembered I had a cold, and was really looking forward the soup I'd just bought.
Which, to be honest, what a bit disappointing. But it was saved by the big round floury loaf of bread I also got, which was unbelievably good. Mmmm. Upside of a cold: lots of soup and bread.
Posted on Thursday, May 23, 2002
|
|
3 Comments
Woohoo! I'm officially going on holiday!
I'm heading to Melbourne for ten days at the start of June, which should be a great break, and everybody keeps telling me that I'll love the place so it's time I checked it out. I'm still working out where I'm staying, which is getting interesting since I'm just over a week away from the flight out. But it'll come together I'm sure.
If you've got any suggestions of what I should check out over there, let me know.. I'm already checking out all the usual sights, and I'm hoping to head into see The Panel live if I get a chance, which I've been wanting to do for years.
Posted on Wednesday, May 22, 2002
|
Melbourne 2002
|
No Comments Yet
I love it when I stumble across great design in the more unlikely places.
Hidden away on the shelf in the 'canned fish' aisle at the supermarket, next to all the boring packaging that John West somehow approved, is one of the funkiest little packages I've ever seen food come in.
Tuna's never looked so cool — Paramount's designers have gone nuts and made little retro labels for all the range of products. From blue to red and purple, the labels are a welcome change from the boring cans from John West and friends. And it's cheaper.
Granted it's made in Thailand (does that make the Thai Sweet Chilli flavour somehow authentic?), but it looks like there's some Australian connection. And the design really floats my boat (sorry), so that makes up for it. Bring it on!
Continue reading "love comes in a dolphin-safe can"
Posted on Wednesday, May 22, 2002
|
|
4 Comments
I don't know what happened, but after a crazy weekend of running after Matt with a camera (more on that later) I'm struck down with a cold. Woe is icky sicky me. Sore throat, stuffed up nose, woozy head. If it's uncomfortable, I've got it.
So I'm here at 11.30 at night, still awake and really quite badly wanting to be asleep. sigh
Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2002
|
|
1 Comments
The front page is more or less ready to go, now I'm just slapping the individual archives into something close to my template, then it's all set to go.
The more time I spend hooking all this up, the less happy I am with this layout. It's partly the visuals, but I think it's mostly because I want to mess with using pure CSS/div for layout, not a mess of tables. So that's my next challenge. I'm going to sit down, work out how it all works (check out Todd's excellent What Do I Know? for reference) and get it running here.
So, in short: stay tuned.
Posted on Thursday, May 16, 2002
|
|
1 Comments
I've got no idea which agency is handling the ads, but I'm a huge fan of all Just Jeans' ads of late. I think it started with the 'whiskers' jeans ads, and it's continued with the spots for ski gear and now the mens jackets (with the funky track from the Grand Popo Football Club).
They're a little bit wrong, but brilliantly funny, and even if the ad gets boring you've got the soundtrack to bop along to. Love it!
I'm not sure that you can download all the ads on the website, but it's worth pointing out that Just Jeans also have a half-decent online store. I wouldn't have picked Australia as a big market for e-commerce (particularly for clothes) but good on them for giving it a go.
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet
My latest muscial indulgence is the debut album from Brisbane band George, who are pretty much band-of-the-moment everywhere you look. It's a great cd, full of beautifully written and lush sounding tunes, about half of which were singles before the album was released.
But that's not to say it's all been heard before. They've re-recorded a few of them, mostly for the better (exception being Spawn which opens sounding a little over-engineered, but rounds out nicely with some new vocal work.
I'm hoping commercial radio doesn't get too into my current fave track, Breathe in Now, because I'd like to be able to listen to it happily for at least three weeks feeling I know every note of the song.
The thing I'm wondering now is where the line of 'alternative' music is drawn.. it seems the record companies (who control most of the music, commercial, alternative or otherwise) have really latched onto the label lately. Powderfinger led the way, Something for Kate got dragged in, and George are there too. The sort of music that gels into playlists on TripleJ and 96fm, co-existing nicely at the opposite ends of each spectrum. It's a little on the commercial side of alternative, or vice versa, depending which end of the dial you're listening to.
Question is, where's the new alternative music getting played?
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002
|
|
6 Comments
God it's great to be back. Bear with me, this is just a quick design to get me back online and blogging, I want to do something a bit different later. But this'll do for now.
Actually, now that I look at it, it's a bit MacOS X-influenced, isn't it? All gooey Aqua-like with that photo on the left. For reference: it's a close-up of a Caithness glass vase, from Scotland. Yay the scots!
So, bear with me, I'm going to get back into the swing of all this and one of these days do something a bit more interesting with the design. Big helvetica type, crop of a photo... it's all a bit lazy really.
Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2002
|
|
No Comments Yet