last.fm

I would like to anounce my sign up to another profile type site. last.fm

last.fm captures your music history and recommends more music for you to listen to. It also has loads of other cool features (statistics) of your listening behavior. I have also put a little badge of my listening on the side bar. The social part is in how you can look at your friends listen habits, write reviews, create your own radio station based on your listening. Playlists (mixtape...), and other sharing of music love.

oh. and they have cool widgets...
























(drawing by Kelly Vivanco (Patches))

No Answer

Whenever I ring people on their mobile and I don't get an answer I always assume they are at the movies. That gets me thinking about what movie they might be seeing and if they had pop corn or m&m's or what beverage they might take with them. I'm not sure why I think the only reason they are not answering their phone is because they are watching a movie. There are an infinite number of other possibilities that are way more plausible. But for some reason the movies is the first thing that pops into my head.

Purging

The great purge of 2007 has begun. We have a garage sale this weekend and so the whole house is getting a big clear out. When you go through your old stuff you get a bit nostalgic. But I have stuck trying very hard to stick to my goal of getting rid of the junk I don't use. Stuff that you haven't used or unable to fix your self is the easy part. The hard part is getting rid of slightly more personal artifacts/items as they may hold some nostalgic value but that is all. I also tend to keep all of my old study materials/notes. Even though I have never gone back to them and probably never will I had kept them. eg tafe stuff which I did not know existed. This obviously means I have had no use for it since actually studying and have not had since then. Often it can be easier to just store the information in your brain or on the computer. So, I have ended up throwing away about 4 boxes so far, with one box full of stuff that I still need to sort through, as they are notes which haven't been filed properly. Uni stuff is a little different, as I am going to be referring to them through my CPA course to refresh my memory for 'assumed knowledge'. So all of that is staying, I also use my tax and company law notes for work, so they actually get used. All that is left is economics and management stuff. Economics I'm keeping for when I do my economics degree/postgrad thingy. But the management stuff is pretty useless to me so, I think I will keep my text books and revision notes, but not all the other junk.

I'm also not sure what to do with photocopied books/notes as some of those articles are actually quite interesting and I paid 10 cents a page...

I should also probably get rid of some of my crappy toys like pogs/matchbox cars/Pokemon which I have no interest in collecting anymore.

My plan if it doesn't all sell, is to donate/throw it away. And maybe with books I could sell it on eBay and get money from overcharging for postage. But my Mum wants to have a garage sale untill its all sold.

Why People Stop Blogging

Why People Stop Blogging, as apposed to why Bloggers stop Blogging. Is an interesting question. People don't necessary run out of things to talk about because we all know a lot of blogs that talk about really stupid and mundane things like how you changed the font from Times New Roman to Arial. And there is always something new happening on the Internet/realife that you could comment/rant on. Ideas are not hard to find.

Blogging tools make it oh so easy, its even easier then using something like Word. In Word you have to think of where to file it, what to call it, there are a bazillion buttons on the toolbar to customise your writing etc. And things like Blogger are free so theres no excuse in accessing the tools necessary to publish your rubbish comments.

A recent trend is the use of social networking/profile sites to fill in your audience with what you are doing. Amongst more hardcore bloggers Twitter seems to be the flavour of the month. These sites require less time to update your fans of what you are up to and isn't as bad as signing up to a dating site... So time is a factor, even a small rant of a few paragraphs can take 30 to 60 mins depending on if you redraft your writ ting. And if you think about it these bloggers just got busy. A few years ago people were:

"wow you have a blog?"
"yeah"
"You must have a lot of time on your hands"
"Its pretty awesome it has jokes on it and a picture of my cat and a link to altavista and hotbot just in case you forget how to type/loose an arm and animations. I could probably work for Pixar but I dont want to because they are a bunch of sell outs working the Mickey destroying the minds of children."
"Ok, I'm gona go over here now..."
"cya"

As if it wasnt obvious enough, the nerd went and got jobs.
And for the rest people like to say something, but don't want to write an essay about it. Hence myspace/facebook/twitter. Low cost of time.

Bandwagon theory/evolution of the Internet

When new things come out people want to be associated with the new shiney things. The web evolves and maybe blogging is only good for people who still like to rant. Facebook makes it easier to tell people what music you like and have dialogue with people. Not many people will leave a comment on a blog or comment on their own blog about a recent blog of your own. Too much effort. Things like facebook make the whole Internet situation smaller. Kinda like how aeroplanes made traveling to Brisbane viable. But what I don't like about it is that its a bit thin. As in you can't delve into something like you would on a blog. You can post a pic and a description. Basically, it can lack substance. But its still really quick way of getting your personal 'brand' out there. If you have a blog that people actually read then you probably don't need to change much, but for people starting blogs, all these web 2.0 tools are pretty important.

A lot of the decent blogs are actually written by a team of people. This helps in terms of reviewing/editing, more in depth research into the posts (more time for each writer). Frequent posts. Essentially all the things that help a blog become awesome and have a decent reader base.

So my blogger template is dead, but maybe its a good thing. Now I have the new fancy archive menu and lables in the side bar. The most amazing thing though is that the pictures display properly. Hooray. Ofcourse, its still oh so wrong to use a default template, so I will work tirelessley untill I have my new template. Hopefully I can have shadows. Because shadows contain ninjas, and ninjas are awesome and awesome.

The saga continues, part 37.

New Template

I am now in the process of updating the template for this blog. As it was getting a bit old and there are a few mistakes which are annoying to look at (eg side bar margins, there isnt any...)

And over all the template is simple and nice but it would be nice to ad a bit more texture/depth. So I am now on a quest to find some shadows effects. And after a small preliminary search on customising blogger all I found was sites which were really ugly. I'm not really sure what persuaded these people to start blogs giving advice on how to customise/desing a blog, because clearly they shouldnt. Either the colours are just wrong or the page doesnt fit on the screen, these are most likely the fools that made myspace so ugly.

edit: Turns out there is a difference in seaching for 'customize blogger' and 'blog design'.

edit 2: ok, so, I did get some good sites in blog desing, but they are mainly sites that are owned by designers selling their services...

I also have a funny feeling that my blogger code is wrong because pictures dont display properly within the post, but just sort of go wherever they like.

So before I go an make drastic changes I have updated this template and tried to clean it up as much as I could

edit 3: looks like I have fucked up my own template somehow. So here is a blogger template untill I fix the problem.

The Ultimate Collection

1 Transformers Collection.

$1,000,000

e-Tax 2007 Program Links

As is the norm every year, the tax office hides its programs in a maze of links. Here are the direct links...

• E-Tax
• Publications
• CGT
• Family Tax Benefit

The main module now inlcudes the 30% baby bonus rebate scheme and you can now download you medicare expenses statement, oh and as was a nice inclusion from last year you can also access your centrelink payments online through etax which is handy if you dont keep your records inorder.

enjoy.

Slow Day

I have no excusses but for some reason I am getting very litle work done today. Yes I am still at work blogging, but this is but one example of not getting very much work done. I was extreamly productive yesterday, so maybe this is the comedown effect from that. Or it could be that I dont have that much to do (definatly not). I just cant seem to focus for more than 15 mins which is annoying. I have been trying to get what I can done, as I know tomorrow I will probably be back to normal. Its days like these where it would be better if you just stayed home.

Home could be the problem, because at home there is ps2 and where there is ps2 there is the recently acquired Need for Speed Carbon, which I bought on Monday for $29.95. I havent played ps2 since we got our new tv as I couldn't be arsed to hook it up. Mainly because of a lack of ports (one of everything is pretty weak), but thankfully the vcr has a few I can use. As unbeliveable as that sounds, the VCR has more holes in it than the TV.

Playing games on a wide screen is different. You can actually see what you are doing. Its also bright enough to actually see what you are doing, which you dont appreciate untill you actually play a game were there are shaddows that hide what you are doing and you basicly have to guess... But now that I can see it is awesome. God of war is a bit like that, but because of the brightness I dont keep dieing. God of war 2 is out now for about $60. But hopefully it will come down in price by the time I finish God of War. One of the interesting things about of God of War is appart from it being an awesome game there seems to be not much media attention on the mini sex games. In GTA:SA all you had to do was take your gf to the night club and visit her frequently and you would get to have sex, and on the PC version there was a patch you could download where you got to see the sex. In God of war you have 2 naked women you jump on the bed and you have to press the various buttons as they flash on the screen to make them have more vigous sex, as depicted by a wobbly vase (you win by knocing the vase over).

How to Tie Shoe Laces

Being able to get your self dressed everyday is a big step in becoming independent.

A mathamagician has calculated the most efficient way to tie your shoelaces.
Runners world has some methods to best suit your feet.

After reading both of these articles I can proudly say I feel slightly more independent.

Ray's Blog republished on news.com.au

A cat from an online comic has been published on news.com.au

nuff said.

Clients: Part 2

And its annoying because you just cant tell how much work would be involved, and if you over estimate then they may decide to go somewhere else and if you underestimate and when the project is finished and you send them the bill they get upset and "you told be $XXX", "but I did spend the last 2 weeks working on it putting aside other work". Oh and the other thing that gets me about clients are the ones that ask you to get something done quicker and then dont bother to even collect that day and wait a week, when you could have comforatbly done it over the the week.

Virus

Luckily the computer caught the virus instead of me. And it was all may own fault. Considering the number of questionable sites I visit, you would think that I would have viruses more often. This is my first virus and maybe in my haste to get Doom 3 to work I didn't notice the evil file I was downloading. As soon as you extract the file the virus (it was actually a Trojan, but it had the ability to create more copies of it self etc... it was quite nasty) the virus loads it self on the computer, then downloads more shit from the internet called Win Anti Virus 2007. It was very well done and looked legitimate, but when stuff starts to download it self you know somethings wrong. Or when you cant get to your anti virus program as it puts its window 'always on-top'. So to get rid of this nasty virus I had to download about 8 different scanning programs and 3 file analysis programs and run them in various numerous times to get rid of this virus. It took 3 days. Which is better than my recovery time. But I still don't feel safe, I will be doing a clean install. But weirdly the package that contained the virus actually had working keys for Doom 3. So in a way its still good. But I think in future I will stick to more well known sites... Oh and run Anti-virus when downloading packages. And run the program on a virtual machine...

Your Inner Child Is Scared

Like a kid, you tend to shy away from new experiences. You prefer what's tried and true - novelty is scary! New foods, new places, and new friends are difficult for you to deal with. Some say you're predictable, but you enjoy being comfortable.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Suits are Cool

Clients

Seth Godin of The Dip fame wrote something funny about one of his clients: [edit: This is not one of Seths clients. I, however have gotten a lot of this over the past few weeks]

"So a client calls me on a Friday - 4PM.

CLIENT: I'm about to talk to the pharma client, I need a computer graphics budget for an interactive CD-ROM.

ME: Great, email me the project details, how many screens, client deadlines, etc.

CLIENT: Well, can't you just give me a ballpark figure?

ME: A ballpark figure? But, I don't know any of specs, nor any of the client info. Please send me what you have, I'll look over it this weekend and I'll have something for you first thing Monday morning.

CLIENT: Well, we need to send them something today, by 4:30PM. Can't you just estimate it?

ME: Okay, $100,000.

CLIENT: $100,000! Why is it that much?"

For inspritation on how to deal with your clients go here.

Revision: Blog Manifesto

Turns out I did have a blog manifesto and it was also my first post. I was supposed to learn some sort of progaming something something and make my own blogging app. The saga did continue for a few years but after a few months I do concede defeat to the almightly blogger.

Blogathon

My freinds Jonathan and Karl have restarted their blogs. Both are in search of work and both will be blogging daily (we will see how long that lasts...) about their endevours to find work.

Jonathan is using the blog as stimulus to get over his 6 months of writters block. And as a potential journalist would probably have starved to death by now if he did actually have such a job. Karl is blogging daily to keep track of his goals in getting a job in design. Which reminds me I have to lend him GTD.

And as always my blogging manifesto is blank. Maybe I could start a blog to discuss what things I could write in my blog.

12 Interesting Facts abotut Icky Thump

1. Icky Thump has no piano performances (unlike it's predecessor which was mostly written and performed on piano). And is the first White Stripes album to contain no piano based songs.

2 It has the most guitar solos Jack White has ever recorded to tape.

3. It is the first time the band has collaborated with horns and bagpipes.

4. It is the first time The White Stripes have ever recorded and mixed an album at a conventional modern studio.

5. Icky Thump was still, however, recorded to reel-to-reel, and mixed to tape in complete analog fashion.

6. The album was recorded in three weeks. Shockingly, the longest the band have ever spent working on a record.

7. Icky Thump contains the first spoken dialogue song to appear on one of their albums; "rag and bone".

8. Icky Thump is the second longest album of The Stripes pantheon thus far. Second to Elephant with more than 48 minutes in running time.

9. The album's title is a morphing of the phrase "ECKY THUMP" which is an exclamation of surprise or wonderment in northern England.

10. The synthesizer used in the title track was also used on the song "Telstar" recorded by Joe Meek.

11. Jack White used the exact same guitars on Icky Thump that he has recorded with on every White Stripes album.

12. "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" is possibly the first song to be written based on a video treatment. This was inspired by one which was given to The White Stripes by Michel Gondry.

[Source: Boarders Newsletter]

Achewood Wolfmother Reference

The current story arch in Achewood has Lyle and Cropes start a band called Mister Band, with Lyle playing bass. and of course Ray signs them.

Todays strip has Lyle trying to get out of playing bass as he doesnt like playing the same same note over and over very repetivly. Anyway, the last panel in todays strip looks like a reference to Wolfmother. Which I think is a bit harsh, mainly because Chris Ross knows at least 3 different notes (not to mention he has to play keyboard at the same time).