Oh you're so going down!
I called up from the flat this morning to talk to my mother about what time I should catch the train down to Colchester and my little bro, Thomas, picked up the phone. The conversation went like this:
"Hello?"
"Hello?"
"Hi thomas, Jeej here, can I speak to mum"
"Nope"
"Why? Is she out?"
"Nope she's watching TV"
"Can you get her?"
"Actually, I don't want to you to come down this weekend. Bye!"
*click*
"Arrgh! You little git!"
I called back and you could hear him laughing his little ass off in the background. Good one Tom =] But I'll have my revenge.. All it takes is a little snow!
IIIIIIIII'm dreaming of a whiiiiiiiiiiiite christmas...
Ok so its a bit late and I didn't get any snow for Christmas. Neither did I manage to frolick in the blanket of white that fell close to the New Year as I was in Hong Kong, but this time I got me some snow! Even if it was scraped off the ledge of somebody's car (a lot of it around here had melted). Yeah sure there are some of you people who are in Calgary going "Here! Have some! It's yours! Take it!" but I'm big on Snow =]
I managed to get my mother with a well timed snowball as we were walking into a supermarket from the carpark.. Sadly I wasn't mean enough to pelt her in the head so I only got her coat. She showed no such reservations when she returned fire as we were exiting the supermarket, throwing a projectile at close range into my ear. Grrr. This means war!
What to do, What to do, What to do
Tomorrow is Saturday and I would normally say "Meet up with the lads and play some consoles" but I'm unsure what everyone is doing. I'm also a bit let down because Matt didn't head down this weekend, so its still just the 4 of us. I also want to spend some more time with my mum as I didn't manage to over last weekend - or into wednesday when I left because we had a house guest.
I am also tempted to go into town first to peruse the aisles of the ToyMaster® there for Foam-Dart weaponry with which to smite my mates =] I'm looking for something in the rapid-fire high velocity, long range, area. Those guys won't know what hit them mwahaha!
On a side note my Aunt actually found this weblogg by coincidence through an internet search a few days ago and called to let us know that she's happy the toys she bought my brother and cousin were being "put to good use" haha! I can assure you they are!
I'm tired so I think I'll head in for the night. *yawns*
later!
John
Woo! iChat! Seriously.. I do!
I'm using iChat at the moment. This application is about a million times better than any IM client I've ever used. Its smooth, well designed and nice to look at. Which is kind of what I should have expected since it was designed by apple. In fact it makes you wish more people used AIM.
Hell it makes me wish it supported more than just AIM and Rendezvous. This application would seriously rock if it worked cross clients but that might bulk up what is on the whole a very tasty and compact application.
I was using Fire.app for ICQ/MSN conversations, sadly lots of my friends are going with MSN *wretch*. ICQ support is probably quite easy to implement but MSN has crappy code written aaaaaaall over it.
Anyway I'd still be left out of conversations with Richard, Ben and Andrew. As everyone else I know on MSN uses more than 1 client
It has to be said if I had to use MSN all day I'd go mad. The mac front end program is nicely written but its UI looks like a 3 year old designed it. Its supposed to be somewhere in the middle between the stylish, elegant and drop dead gorgeous Aqua and Microsoft's hashed together (and hastily renamed when the found out what apple were calling their look) "luna" which I believe is the code word for "Fisher-Price".
What results is a hideous amalgamn of translucency and fat, crappy buttons.. I mean the Send button is like 3/4 of the window size!! The menu bar is twice the height of any bar in any application and although I can just about put up with it on my 17" LCD at the flat (and only just mind, given how well designed most other macintosh GUIs are) but on my iBook it hogs ACRES of space which it simply doesn't need I tend to get pissed off when 3/4 of the crap on an application is unusable eye-candy. A lot of people don't seem to get that apple can make a beautiful application but also have nothing which is a waste of space. No other instant messaging application takes up that much room, its just microsoft's complacency because they don't need to worry that PC users will care what their applications will look like because half of them are too lazy to drag their mouse away from the pre-bundled applications.
No flames incidentally, please =] Its the truth, so sayeth the American Courts of Justice =] Read the trial reports folks. That's what Microsoft was found guilty of and its just a shame to see them use that as an excuse for bad design ethic on the macintosh platform.
It's Promissory Estoppel time - Its promissory estoppel time! Promissory Estoppel!
That title's supposed to be sung (or randomly shouted) to the tune of "Its Penut Butter Jelly Time" =]
Anyhow its because I was traveling back to London from Colchester yesterday when I incurred the wrath of Ticket Collectors. Basically my ticket was 'out of date' so I had no valid ticket and hence had to pay a penalty fare of the original ticket PLUS a £10 fee. Was it my fault? Was it my fault my arse!
I had passed it through one of the automated ticket gates which let me past. Therefore I assumed it would let me travel on that day and I carried on my merry way till I was stopped by a ticket collector on the way to London.
Basically I get to appeal to some independent commission. So my reasoning is this: If the gate had performed its sole prerogative duty and ensured that people with invalid tickets couldn't travel, therefore to warn them if their tickets were invalid, I would have known of this and could have purchased a new ticket.
There is legal principle behind this as well. Promissory Estoppel. Basically if one party asserts to another party that a certain set of conditions are true and the recipient party acts upon that assertion to his detriment the initial party is unable to later claim that those conditions no longer exist.
See by telling me my ticket was valid for travel that day First Great Eastern made me a promise that I acted upon by taking the train. Therefore they are 'estopped' from later claiming to me that my ticket is invalid for travel and hence applying the fine.
At first I was pissed off but then I realized that I actually got to do a bit of Legal work.. Later I realized I would probably pay £10 for the opportunity to do this. Man I'm sad but it sure will be fun if the commission decides otherwise.. I'll take civil proceedings against them if need be! I will have my £10 back! The law is in my corner!
How cold is it outside? F********!!! CLOSE THE DOOR!! CLOSE IT!!!
My good friend Alex arrived last night at some ungodly hour (1) and I had to go to Liverpool Street to meet him. The McDonald's at the station was open so I picked up 2 apple pies as I figured he probably was starving and I had no food in the house =]
He arrived, most grateful for the apple pie (Hey, one of them had to be for me =] I'm generous but I'm not two apple pies generous) and we spent 30 minutes outside the station freezing our buts off waiting for the N11. We were most relieved when it eventually did arrive (I couldn't feel my face) and the trip was quite speedy. Still, nothing compared to how fast it'll be once congestion charging arrives (mwahahahah!!). Anyhow we got to the flat at around 2, had a warm drink of tea/hot chocolate and went out separate ways at the end of the corridor, basically passing out just as we reached our rooms.
This morning I decided that I would pick up the RAM I ordered which had arrived the day before. Sadly although I had the "You weren't here" card from the Post Office I had arrived in London after they shut the sorting office close to the flat so I couldn't collect it.
I went to Sainsbury's and made a circuit out of it. Picking up the daily essentials, Milk, pasta, RAM etc.
Anyhow I'm stocked up on food again (woo!) and I installed the ram. Just opened Genevieve my Quicksilver G4 and slotted it in, started up without a hitch and opened the "About this mac" panel with pride, lovingly noting the 768mg my tower was now accredited. Mmm... Ram
As for what they say about OS X running especially speedily when you have loads of ram, I can't be too sure as I've only had it in about 1 hour and haven't been engaged in anything especially taxing on the system. I might pop in Giants; Citizen Kabuto the king of all comedy strategy FPS's and see what difference it makes. The other acid test is Civ III. Don't as me how but the Mac dev team decided that it'd be:
"Really neat if our game ate so much ram that it ground to pittifully slow speeds even on top of the line powermacs!"
Muuuuuuuuuzac!
Ah yes, that crappy sounding 3 track CD can only mean one thing; waiting for a customer service expert.
Today it was One.Tel my new broadband provider (well.. To be anyway) as I called up to ask "what the hell was going on with my order" as I hadn't received any updates. Anyhow turns out they really aren't to blame (I didn't really expect them to be, they seemed a nice enough company) and the true villain's identity was so obvious that they would all have to had simultaneously worn eyepatches, prosthetic limbs and spoken with an odd accent for me to have guessed any quicker. BT..... Dum dum duuuuuum!
Yes as was reported in The Register, BT has broadband by the balls and is squeezing as much as it possibly can do without getting sued. Basically One.Tel have to hand their orders over to BT for the infrastructure work on checking the line and stuff because BT won't let them. It is at this point (after 26 tea breaks) that BT get back to them giving them a 'Live-Date' (38 tea breaks later) so that One.Tel can issue usernames, passwords and line-installations.
They say since the baton was handed over to BT on the 23rd I should get my 'Live-Date' soon and they can then do stuff. Still, I have little trust for a company who's Dial-Up service changed from "BT Anytime" to "BT Sometimes" and finally to "BT When we feel like it". Urge to play Getaway Rising! Only for BT van scenes.. Screw killing people whilst wearing BT overalls. I want to total the BT van! =]
To go back to the title the One.Tel line-hold music wasn't all that bad, in fact it was quite a nice choir piece. Unfortunately it lost marks after I started hearing it again - arrgh!
Right the time has come for me to Eat something!
later folks
John
Productivity Levels reaching zero sir!!
Ah yes, a whole day of doing nothing but sitting around. I had many opportunities to go out and stuff, hether it was to go into town to withdraw some cash or to go food shopping. However a day of basically goofing off does have its advantages.
Namely the fact that whilst being intensely bored I managed to write a decent piece of (entirely fictional) Guild lore. It came out rather well if I do say so myself.
It probably had something to do with the fact that I had the LOTR CD playing in the background and I kept hearing that superb melody.. You know the title one?
Anyhow Mr. Howard Shore has made sure that you can't actually hear it on just one track.. Its in all the tracks.. But only for about 30 seconds. So my friend COnrad and I were ranting that you couldn't just listen to the melody, you had to go through all the score to listen to it :/ I hope that the Two Towers Soundtrack has it on its own.
Hmm really uneventful day!
Later
John
Crap I killed another post!!! What is wrong with my Hyperlinks? haha!
arrrrgh! Blogger just mangled that last post. It actually takes some of my broken HTML code from the post and incorporates it into the access controls for post modifying so it kills my "edit post" button link so I can't even destroy it! There must be a manual over-ride =]
Later
John
For the sake of completion the quote ends thusly:
Just can't get enough of your RAM baby!!!
Forgor to mention that I bought 512mg of RAM last night for Genevieve =] Woo! It only cost £55 inc VAT and free shipping! Woo! God bless Posted by John Swaine at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
Hong Kong eh? Thats in Japan right?
This is another comic strip script but I'm not going to be able to launch the comic till I have a reliable scanner source (Scanner stays in Rowhedge) so I'll tell you all about this incident anyway:
The card I hold is mandatory amongst all Hong Kong residents
It controls everything from taxes, to phone bills to registrations to virtually every bank or service
About 350 people are pulled up by the police each day for not having it on their person
It can get you through the most stringent Immigration Department in the world..
but it can't let you buy a pint of lager at a family pub!!
This is basically about what I did today. I managed to meet up with Richard and Sean Andrews for a quiet drink in the playhouse a pub in Colchester. Anyhow we go there and the guy at the bar said "Can I see your ID". "Sure" say I and pull out my plethora of ID cards:
1) My London Metropolitan University Student Card
2) My National Union of Students Card
3) My London Transport Student Card
4) My Credit Card (You have to be 18 to be eligible - to enter into a binding contract)
NONE of these pass!!!! The guy decides he's not going to serve on ANY of those IRREFUTABLE claims to be over 18!!! "So its time to pull out the big-guns", I thought:
5) My Hong Kong Identity Card
As was mentioned above this card is fool-proof and the strictest system in the world..
"Nah sorry"
Ok lets remove the fact that I'm 6 foot Frikking 2.5 inches!! And the fact that I have just presented him with irrefutable proof that I'm in university. This man has just refused to acknowledge a Government Issue ID Card!
So what can I use to drink at the playhouse?
"A driving License or a Passport"
Goddammit!! What if I don't want to drive (as I don't at the moment - no need)? Will you decide not to accept my Passport!!??! It is Italian after all!!
He gets that looks that stupid English people get when they are being skeptical about something the "ooo.. Dunno about that" look and says:
"well.. Maybe.. Probably not though.. you have to be difficult don't you"
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!
At this point my mate Richard, who is almost 10 inches shorter than me and is being served asks if I can sit with my mates...
"Yes" Replies the barman "as long as you sit in the family section as children aren't allowed near the bar"
CHILDREN!!??!?!? HOW MANY 10 YEAR OLDS DO YOU KNOW WHO ARE 6'2" TALL!?
What? Was I supposed to order from their Tom and Jerry™ Kids menu?!? For the love of God!! How stupid, stubborn and ignorant can one man be!?
I wish I had like a little stamp which stamped "Idiot" in an unwashable chemical on people's foreheads, which could only be seen under UV light.. Then an underground collective of us would be able to tell if people were thick as 2 short planks..
"This part goes here... I think.. Should it really look like a rabbit? I thought this was a desk"
Before the playhouse incident I went into Colchester to help out with the work done on a new clothes store being opened by a family friend who asked my mother to help manage it. Anyhow we were building one of those Flat-Pack desks. Now I have only really had good experiences of Flat-Pack because I have always bought Ikea desks and stuff which was Flat-Pack and that went together really easily. At the end of it we were saying stuff like "Right.. Connect non-descript blob of wood 19 to misshapen piece 30". Richard and Andrews had finished their college stuff and decided to come and help and we managed to complete it in about an hour. Overall it took about 5 hours.. The box said 1 hour 15. I would feel inadequate but as the famous impotence adage goes; "Don't worry it happens to every man at some time in their life" haha!
Right.. I need some tea
Later folks!!
John
GET THE QUOD DAMAGE!!:)
Yes another night in with the lads :)
However this one was looking to turn out significantly tamer than usual. Probably due to the fact that Ben, Andrew and I were alone for quite some time sitting around watching what little there was on TV whilst passing round the GBA's playing an Advance Wars battle.
Then I figured I might whip out the Nerf Bazooka's my brother and his cousin had gotten for Christmas and left at the farm.. Anyhow I locked and loaded and entered the sitting room declaring in my best Arnie accent "I vill Ownz Joo all Boyeees" and let rip a salvo at ben who immediately picked up the other launcher and loaded. See the farm is really bloody big and quite empty in some areas, complete with a sitting room so absurdly and unnecessarily cavernous that it actually looks like a quake level. Perfect conditions for a Deathmatch :) What followed was a scene that wouldn't have looked out of place in Men Behaving Badly as we ducked behind sofas, jumped for cover and performed matrix like dodging to avoid the foamy-rounds before launching a nerf-rocket towards our opposite number. No words can convey the amount of fun had and how sad we must have looked haha!
We had one particular standoff at either ends of the living room as we ran at each other and luanched - reloaded - launcher - reloaded etc until we were down to one round each.. Mine struck ben in the Shoulder and I thew my hands up in victory, at least until Ben loosed off a full power - extra pressurized salvo into my groinal area.. I buckled like one of those string toys when you push your thumb into the stand to loosen the strain. Then whilst I was rolling on the floor he proceeded to launch 3 more rounds successively into my head... Methinks Ben has played a few to many FPS's.
(BTW the quod damage is one particular Nerf-Rocket which quadruples the points we get for hitting specific body-areas. Our scoring system is like this:
Lower body: 1 point
Upper body: 2 points
Ass shout: 3 points
Head shot: 5 points
Groin: 5 - but obviously more fun than the headshot - less so for the receiver. )
Next on my shopping list behind the extra RAM I want and my Retro-fitting my old Japanese Game Cube has to be some more Nerf Guns.. The multi-barreled ones with the 8 shot magazines :) Time to Up the ante!
In fact we were discussing getting walkie talkies to play Nerf Counter Strike. Now that would be superb.... We're supposed to be 18 to 19 years old!!
Vroom Vroom
We decided to get some food after having exhausted ourselves at Nerf-Quake and so drove off to Sainsbury's partly to let Ben say hi to his Girl Lauren and partly to get some sustinence. Sadly Ben and Andrew's complete lack of decision making skills rendered them completly incapable of making a choice of what to eat and so, in search of a more limited menu we went to a Fish & Chips shop and took our lives in our hands.. Well I did because I ordered a Jumbo Battered Sausage. Its got to be said that this particular Chip shop did put me in mind of Cut-me-own-throat-dibbler's "Meat" and more expensive "Named Meat" pies. I should have ordered the named meat... urgh.
On a good note however Andrew's driving is actually good, having spent more than enough time in Carl's motor at the mercy of his specialized driving style (specialized because most other road users know how to use the clutch and read speed limits =]) it was a breath of fresh air to be driving fast but controlled in a friend's car! He was also kind enough to drop me off in town this morning so I didn't have to walk. Good mate.
Oooooo Shadowbane
Would it hurt Swing (Shadowbane's European Publisher) to take a page out of Ubi's (US publisher) book? 3,000 new beta testers!
- The reasoning:
"We want this next wave to come in and break Shadowbane. We need them to tear it apart, so we can put it all back together - and then we will do it again."
Swing! (Yes that's how its spelt.. actually with the exclamation mark) however are doing combat balancing instead - Phht! Sissies! What do we need balanced PvP for? haha!
I can only hope that they notice that despite the Humans being the most populous race in Shadowbane there aren't really all that many of them in beta =] Balance the humans!! We want better Stats :) Of course I'm not actually in Beta to know this but by the looks of things from write-ups and pictures there really aren't enough of us powder-pink fleshy folks in-game.
Still, having seen the map Swing has posted about the whole world forced-redistribution I can see at least 2 cities which are pretty much on the absolute frontier of combat - that ought to be a fun place to be :)
Also anyone else who follows Shadowbane noticed the rather obvious LOTR allusion in the 2 towers of Swing!'s new Beta phase? Granted they are opposing in this instance but its nice to know that it wasn't a entirely arbitrary scenario :)
Friends are there for youuuuuuuu!
Yes that is the Garfield themetune.. For reasons as of yet unknown to me my youngest two siblings have been rewinding and watching the title again and again. I would be scared but at the moment I'm more super pissed off as there is only so much of that song that one can take! Arrrrgh! I can hear it even when its not playing!!!!
- Added: Found out they were trying to learn the words to the themetune.... WHY??
Extreme Quidditch!!
Ian has come through once again with new Machall comic. He seems to be back on normal distribution times again! Lord be praised! If you've read machall for a while you'll recognize the title of this particular topic. I really have to get round to practicing my artwork again today. Practice makes perfect I suppose. Besides I have so many ideas for stips that I think my head is going to explode =] Actually I recently read something which Gabe of Penny Arcade said to that extent. It described that feeling as indication that you really ought to be writing a strip. I take that as a sign from god.
nSync.. not the boyband
I'm talking about the application nSync which lets me sync Denning the Newton with OS 10.2 functions like the improved address book and the glorious iCal :D I'm loving it and probably would be using it an awful lot more if I was with Genevieve my G4 Tower at the moment as opposed to being on my 10.1 ibook - Trevor as I'm in Rowhedge.
Right I'm going to eat something.. Well.. I might.. Oh the choices!
Later folks!
Take care!
John
hiya
Yeah.. see that probably isn't a good idea mate
At least that is what I would probably have liked to have heard because in the last 24 hours I think I drank 3 pints of milk.. In fact I know I did it because my milk carton has exact markings being all plastic and see through and stuff (it has an embossed marking for each pint). When I arrived on tuesday I thought "Crap I ought to buy some milk" but then when I got the flat I found out I already had bought milk so I said "damn! Why did I buy this new Big carton??" Now most intelligent people would have said "Oh wait this one has a big-ass expiry date time, I can leave it till I get back" but something within me said "You've got to drink this stuff now or something terrible will happen to your family.. And your toaster" (hey, could anyone really live without their toaster?) So I managed to drink 3 pints of milk in the space of 24 hours because I had only just finished the original carton. This is why I probably shouldn't be left to my own devices for too long =]
Testing.. Testing... 1 - 2
Had the constitutional exam this morning which went very well I think, I managed to finish inside the requisite half hour early that is required to let you leave the exam hall early. If you're 15 minutes early or less than 30 you can't leave the exam hall.. Why? I'm not really sure.. There are probably a whole plethora of reasons but I'm not in any mood to think about them because I'm still getting used to having a whole week to sit on my behind. How is this different from any other week you may ask?... buggered if I know to tell you the truth! =]
Oh who left that train there? Honestly! Come on, pick it up!
I had the misfortune of being in my first national rail train delay, sure I'd been held up on the tube but not on Great Eastern (how I get home from London). Something happened to a train at some station (I think it was shenfield) and I ended up being about 2 hours later than I would have liked getting home.. On the plus side I did.. Actually where was the plus side? I had a fat dude falling asleep on me for 45 minutes for pities sake :) Ah no.. Wait I've found the plus side - I did manage despite the huge squeeze to find one of my favourite "No opposing chair seats" because I've got freakishly long legs. Nothing is more annoying than having your legs cramped up when you're a 34" in-seam :)
Right I think it is now my duty to go and sit and chat to people online.. If you want to contact me MSN fussili@hotmail.com ICQ 73660344 and AIM if I'm on iChat... I can't remember my details for that one as its actually a mac.com account =]
BTW one damn funny thing
Its an .MP3 of some guy getting a little worked up about Counter Strike to a techno track :) Funny stuff if you find profuse swearing as funny as I do =]
Later folks!
John
Hello all
and the lights went out all over the world
Sorry for the outage in reports, it was due to Blogger loosing control of their template server which killed every non 'blogger-pro' blog as soon as someone posted. However they've fixed it (hence the posting) =]
The Joys of Jaguar
I finally have OS 10.2 running on my machine which is great fun. I love Quartz Extreme, the rendering protocol for OS 10.2 because it means that at the moment I am watching "jeeves & wooster" on DVD (Anyone else love that show?) whilst my system calculates about 70 other transparencies and alpa layers and lays my text editor window over it in transparency. Woo!
Classic episode of "Jeeves & Wooster" OH MY GOD Its the guy who played Captain Hollister in Red Dwarf just made a cameo in J&W, classic stuff.
On Safari
Much has been said about apple's new browser Safari and having used it for a bit I have a few things to say about it. I'm one of the folks who really can't live without his tabbed browsing so its absence is sorely missed in a browser of such tremendous capability. Its a nice application and it runs smoothly - although it actually seemed a bit sluggish compared to Chimera, I'm not sure whether that is because I haven't downloaded the 10.2.3 update or what but I just don't see a huge difference in performance between it and Chimera, what is more the absence of tabbed browsing also means I can't do the cool "6 tabs of daily comedy" thing which sucks as it has become a favourite activity when I wake up in the morning - its like reading the funnies in a newspaper.
Another thing is that Chimera always used to have slightly awkward looking buttons and menus but with the new graphical - slightly flatter style of Aqua in 10.2 it certainly looks the part of a top notch browser =]
For now Chimera remains my #1 choice for browsing but Safari could pip it at the post.. Or something like that =]
Other cool Jaguar things
I noted that since I now have 10.2 I can use the great nSync application to sync my Newton with my iCal calendar and address book functions in 10.2 which ought to make Denning happy as he hasn't been of much use as of late, this is primarily due to the fact that the revision I've been doing is for Constitutional Law which doesn't really have much in the way of cases to refer to. Most of its just theory and a lot of the theory sticks in your head as soon as you hear it because it fits together like one big jigsaw puzzle.
Sherlock has great new features but the absence of a UK localized version does make it slightly chocolate-teapot-ish. It does tag along to ebay.com which is cool but sadly I use Ebay.co.uk which I don't think it supports. The flight times are very cool as are its many search abilities and I particularly like the dictionary as I'm prone to malapropism at times =]
Hang on I'm using the ebay search thing and it truly does rock which kind of makes the fact that it has no ebay.co.uk localized support both suck and blow.
Hmm 3 GenY phrases in 1 sentence. I really ought to watch less TV =]
Crystal Clear baby!
I also got my replacement Earphones which have the cool iPod min-remote woo! And in perfect timing as I managed to *cough* step on mine last night - just as well I had already ordered replacements.
Well time to sync up Denning!
later folks!
Take Care!
John
Hmm the page isn't loading whats up with that?
this one seems to have died in a state of extreme amusement
I don't even think I have to write anything about this.. Gabe and Tycho have delivered a comic so superb that it triggered what might be the loudest I've ever laughed at a webcomic. What can I say? Gabe and Tycho you both rock!!! The timing, the artistry everything was superb!!
I'm paying more for Club PA this month purely on its merit
Later
John
Share and share alike
Yeah I'm going to talk about the topic which everyone hates. File Sharing, you're either on the one side of the fence "Things should be free" or on the other "No they shouldn't". I was on the first side until I sat down and thought about it "Lets see, its not mine.. The artists say I'm not supposed to have it.. I'm in the wrong". No-one can debate the issue because there's nothing morally correct about it, the one situation in which I would consent to downloading music is on the basis that "I will without doubt pay for this at a later time in life" call me a bit sure of myself but I know I'll be able to buy anything I might download and even then I still don't because my mates would try and throw all my "Stealing is wrong" stuff back at me =]. Plus the complete and utter pantsness of Mac file sharing clients means I couldn't anyway.
Until now.. this interesting iTunes plug in called iCommune was released. One of the coolest things about using a mac is that there are loads of people out there making your experience better by writing nice code. There is a huge irony in the comparative sizes of the Windows and Mac user base and how much the users are willing to put back into the community. 1 Week after iTunes3's new API hits the downloads (nearly all of Apples stuff is open source nowadays - suck it Mr. Bill "Open source is evil communist satanism" Gates) we have a plug in which simply rocks! It takes apple's rendevous instant networking stuff and allows you to share music within iTunes now I'm sorry but since:
a) iTunes is the best Music playback/organization application in the world
b) It syncs automatically with Kevin my iPod
and c) I'm soon to have broadband installed
- it all seems like an elaborate plan to get me to switch to the other side of the fence. Now I'm actually going to use it because it lets you stream off your music library which rocks but could you imagine how cool it would be to have everyone's music in a package which syncs with your iPod? I mean I could have an album straight onto my iPod in doubletime!
Anyhow Apple has pulled iCommune down so I guess its off to the mirror sites if you want some of that p2p goodness.
There is another view that apple is actually pulling it down because it might interfere with its own music sharing iTunes functionality (accross a rendevous network) which does seem to fit as being able to dynamically share around your Mp3's on a network using Rendevous infrastructure is a very cool Digital Lifestyle -type thing.
Anyhow I have 5gigs of all legal music on my iPod apart from 1 track and 1 album
Track: Its going down
Album: System of a Down - Toxicity
and I intend to rectify this situation next time I come within proximity of a record store. There you go Ben, I'm not a hypocrite =] Hehe
Pooch Cafe
I already mentioned this great strip before in one of my posts probably over the new year but I just received feedback from Paul Gillingham who writes the strip! Woo! I'm so happy! Apparently there's a pooch cafe collection coming out in March so if your scratching your head Acquaint yourself with one of the most intelligent comic strips out there =] I guarantee you'll love it - they are dogs which despite their free-will are constantly pulled by their nature to do dog like things. Its superb because most other comic animals are just mini-humans but these guys don't know why they do dog stuff other than because they just do, ultimately Poncho is a dog, and nothing he can do can change that fact. Its glorious.
More later!
John
Hello all! Time for the roundup of my life as of the last 2 days or so
"Would you rather be dropped into the middle of an olympic sized swimming pool with a shark or 15 piranhas?"
Yes that utterly random question with two equally dislikable choices can only mean one thing. A night in with the lads. (Ben is responsible for those types of questions) This is how it works: Basically a load of my mates bundle round to the farm and play whatever new console games have been purchased to death on either
a) Matt's XBox
b) Richard's PS2
c) Ben's dreamcast or
d) my GameCube.
In fact Richard now also owns an Xbox for reasons which have not become clear to me yet. Anyhow we tend to play the game to death (ie: Vice City / GTA 3/ Halo/ Gauntlet Dark Legacy - Penny Arcade strip about a similar gaming experience ) and then sit around and maybe watch a movie. God Bless having mates. How else could we ensure all the good games got played other than by having all the major console bases covered? I mean sure we could actually fork out for them but some of us having to lend money to girls who never pay us back or something equally fiscally draining (BTW the money lending is entirely Matt's domain =] I've offered legal advice as to what he can do to reclaim the balances should he so choose to hehe)
Anyhow amongst the copious amount of cola and other soft-drinks and whatever beer was carted over we tend to have a great laugh and just chill-out before going to sleep at a ridiculous hour. We are the media generation =]
Last night was a great laugh although we were pitiful on the attendance levels =] Ben arrived as usual as did Andrew some time later but he later left fearing Richard's Wrath. You see he sort of left Richard to find alternate modes of transport to his house.. And by leaving him to find the modes of transport I mean he drove off whilst he was getting something from McDonald's. And by 'alternate modes of transport' I mean he walked.. And by 'to his house' I mean fecking miles. Needless to say Richard was swift to offer many means of vengeance which did not appeal to Andrew and so, wishing to have his clothes/limbs both intact and dry (one suggestion involved the pool) he left before Richard arrived. It did seem a bit out of the blue as Rick wouldn't really have done more than have a go at him with a laugh.
Someone up there is looking down on me.... And laughing his ass off
Yeah, those of you who have watched the seminal classic Steve Martin portrayal of Sgt. Earnest Bilko that quote will make sense but even without prior knowledge it is easy to convey the feeling that ones legs have been involved in some hideous experiment involving a 15 stone wrestler and a copy of "Physiotherapy for the Steroid-influenced demented".
Basically the buses that go from the Farm (Where I was last night) are about 1 an hour.. Except on Sunday, which it was today. When they are 1 every 3 hours so I decided to walk into town instead of waiting for the next bus. I was like "hey I did this when I was 11 on my bike so no problem right?" But of course the operative words were "On my bike". Basically the whole sodden trek was like something out of a WWII Escape movie. By far the highlight was when I stopped at this big-ass puddle and thought to myself "Man that is one biiiiiig-ass puddle.." just giving a passing 16 wheeler truck time to accelerate and dump the contents of the puddle onto me. You can't make comic timing like that.
Spare time.. We like
Yeah so tomorrow is monday and I have loads of spare time. I figured I might actually get down to illustrating a full comic strip. Here's the deal. About 6 months ago I figured it'd be fun to draw a comic strip featuring my mates and I found myself writing loads of scripts on the spot, some actually quite funny according to the other people who read them. I learned to draw really basic Anime. I mean people like Ian McKonville and Mike Krahulik are artists, in so far as they can draw stuff like say "Draw a vacuum Cleaner" and they'd draw it well. I approached it from the point of view of a formulaic system for getting down images from words but I remain a big advocate of the 'active strip'.
There is a superb Calvin and Hobbes strip where the two are standing almost motionless in a very un-C&H like manner talking to each other about Calvin's Grandad saying comics had just become "a bunch of xeroxed heads talking to each other" culminating in the lines "Your grandad sure takes the funnies seriously doesn't he?" "Yeah mum and dad are looking into homes for him". Anyhow the point is I could just do like 3 of 4 drawings of each character and multiply them endlessly to create a uniform and decent product but there wouldn't be any of the kinetic appeal that sets apart such great webcomics as PA and MacHall. In short I'm going to keep drawing these strips till I can finally have a product I'm proud of and as soon as that's done I'll put them online.
Right I'm going off to bed now because I'm shattered!
Hi folks, Busy day!
You a Scrub boy!
New series of Scrubs started last night.. I laughed my ass off as I always do. It really is one of the funiest shows on TV, quick witty and zany. The perfect combination for comedy and really puts the boot into that crap BBC Sitcom "TLC". It had such potential but was killed by some really stupid characters and a whole load of crap cliche. Anyhow I think Scrubs kicks ass. Thought you might like to know.
No you a Scrub boy!
Ack daytime TV raises its ugly head again. Aside from being Sci-Fi heaven, Sky One is also brain-rot city in the mornings with a constant stream of Jenny (Bareably) Sally (how did this woman get a TV show?) and *wretch* Dr. Phill (need I say more?). Surely there are only so many permeutations of incestual/wrong-aged relations? Its always the same:
"I think my no good cheating Boo is cheating on me again but I'm too stupid to leave the scumbag and have to drag him on TV so he can be booed and take a lie detector"
Man! Its always the same! Actually I lie there are probably about 5 more categories:
"My ungrateful brat of a kid is calling me bitch and spraypainting the house because I have no parenting skills, please discipline him so I don't have to do any actual work for his upbringing"
"I need to show the work what a freak my friend is for going out with this dwarf/fat-person/stripper/70-year-old "
"My friend has slept with my husband.. Again.... Whilst I was sleeping with her husband who you have backstage.. Aw Dang!"
What would it cost Sky to buy the rights to David Letterman's Late Show? I miss that whilst I'm away from HK and he's doing anti-Dr.Phill jokes!!
And now on Sky Sports/Star Sports/Star Sports2/
I only just realized this whilst watching TV yesterday that the guy who does the Voice overs and announcements for Sky Sports actually does the Star Sports announcements in Hong Kong! Seriously! Its not just two guys who sound alike (as most sports presenters do) its actually the same person! Which makes sense because BSkyB owns Star Broadcasting but its so funny! This guy must be like kept in a little room 2 weeks a month and made to say all these many many announcements. I thought the work load for Star Spors was heavy I was like "woah that guy must get really bored of sports really fast" and now I find out he does Sky Sports as well! This man is a legend! Almost as cool as the guy who commentates on Trans World Sports.. Mmm Trans World Sports.. I wonder if they have a website.
I can't believe its not Legal Method!
Legal Method exam was today. It went really well as I had about 1 hour and 45 minutes to do a 1 hour essay question since I sped through the Multiple Choice (no ordinary multiple choice, these are evil multiple choice) I think I did well and I only just made the deadline because I wrote so much haha =]
This does of course mean I have a week of revision time for the next exam next friday on Constitutional Law whose exam-format is excactly the same: 60 MCQ's and an Essay Question.. Actually I think that might be only 30 MCQ's.
Oh and the exam questions today seemed like simple recycled questions from the last years paper because a lot of them seemed almost identical to last year's. In fact I'm sure some of them even were the same as last year's. ( We did last year's as mocks).
Now thats what I call simply the best euphoric dance album in the world... ever volume 2 mixed by Judge Jules, 59
I've been listening to Robbie William's last album lots recently and have started singing "Me and my Monkey" at in-opportune moments.. Namely the shopping queue for Sainsburies. Also listened to my sister's Busted album. These guys are kind of funny but slightly immature, which is all part of the charm.. If only the had a drummer and didn't steal Blink 182's guitar riffs haha =] Actually I have a lot of respect for them as lots of their songs are incredibly funny, they remind me of a band at my last school called "Mafia" in my sister's year. in fact she commented that they seemed exactly like the guys she goes to Sixth Form with.
Ack.. Serious dearth of nice albums at the moment.. Will probably have to go buy System of a Down's latest album. I'm not a grunger by any means but those guys rock. A whole lot of depth to their music and lyrics which a lot of people don't appreciate (I heard one fantasticly deep appraisal of 'Chop Suey' on the album "Toxicity" and I quote; "Its about religion" Give that person a cigar =] Next up a fascinating critique of La Vita é Bella: "Its about love".
Real mastery stuck in a Genre with random shouting =]
Squaters!!
My good friend Alex Wan is heading over here for the Chinese New Year celebrations and needs a place to crash on wednesday as he arrives on a late flight and the person with whom he's staying can't let him in that late.. Sounds like a job for "has a nice flat boy".. I hope there's not a spandex costume involved =]
Well thats all folks!
PS: I really like this heading format I'm using at the moment, Its all manual HTML but I think it works quite well =]
PPS: Carl Starling was the man =] About 2% of you might get that really obscure media reference but he was one cool guy who I just randomly felt like mentioning.
Take care!
Later!
John
Hey
The long slow march towards Shadowbane beta continues. Must.. Have.. Online.. Roleplaying fix!
Stargate
Thought I might mention something else which is cool. Stargate SG-1. Now I assume loads of people have watched the film Stargate? You therefore know the plot.. I didn't! However I don't think it can possibly be as good as the TV show as it (probably) doesn't have the same characters.
Boo unilateralism
Anyhow originally I saw it from time to time on Channel 4 and I wasn't too enamoured by it. I mean the characters were ok but the plot seemed a bit odd and my hatred for unilateralism was kind of stoked by the whole "US finds Stargate... Ships it to US and doesn't tell anyone" I was like "nooo! Now all the aliens in the series will think that we're all American on planet earth hehehe" of course the show wasn't real but that didn't stop me getting a tinsey bit narked. Still as the show progresses I'v been really enjoying the whole character interaction
Ok as long as its those unilateralist Americans who represent earth its ok.. They're cool
I really enjoy some of the characters, especially McNeil who originally seemed a bit of a simplistic Gi-Joe hero. He's actually a quite deep and well thought out character with a wicked wit and sense of irony, plus he fancies the pants of Major Carter and doesn't even show it. Superb! I normally don't like that sort of story because the writers milk it for all its worth and have awkwad "will he, won't he" pauses and stuff like that, but the guys who write SG-1 decided not to pad their show with stuff like that and let the characters remain true to themselves. In fact the one time you see it is in the brilliant "Groundhog Day" episode (you know like the fantastic Bill Murry film of the same name) when in one 'loop' he hands in his resignation and is asked why. He replies "So I can do this!" and takes Carter in a sweeping hollywood kis (which she reciprocates) before the flash signals the begining of a new loop.
In fact that episode just kicks ass full stop. Theres a hillarious 'Using the Stargate as a driving range' gag when O'Niel and Teal'c who are caught in the loop have worked out they can do whatever they want and get returned to the same day:
(Teal'c and O'Niel are wearing full golfing gear with an astro-turf matt down at the bottom the stargate ramp)
O'Niel: "How far is it to X-P35A?"
Teal'c: "About 300 million miles"
Teal'c Drives a ball through the rippling stargate
O'Niel: "Well thats gotta be some kind of a record"
O'Niel steps up to play his shot
General Hammond: "O'Niel what the hell are you doing!?"
O'Niel: "Right in the middle of my Backswing General?!"
Then there's O'Neil griping that he has to listen to Daniel ask the same question everytime he 'restarts the loop' and Teal'c says "It is not only you who must endure some discomfort O'Niel". We are then shown how Teal'c starts his loop each day - a private opens the door into his face. Classic Slapstick made all the better by Teal'c's nature (He's a big black beefy stereotype who once served the Gould however you spell their name).
Man thats some good TV.
Finally downloaded the new copy of Fire.. I didn't realise it had been released because my client said I had the most up to date version. I hope it supports group chats in MSN which was why I downloaded this other crappy app to talk to people on MSN.
In other news I found out why I couldn't find conrad on MSN before I loaded the new app. It was because being the brains of britain I had put him in the "Blocked Buddies" folder when I created his profile.. Classic goof-up.
Denning, my Newton is moping around waiting for the new semester to render him invaluable again. Sadly it doesn't start till February so he has to sit around for a while longer being just "useful" =]
Found out what the hell the Chimera "bookmark all tabs" button does when you make a bookmark and my god is it good! Basically it bookmarks all the tabs you have open and saves it as a compound bookmark (looks like a stack of bookmarks in the bookmark menu/window) and when you choose it, it opens a new window with a seperate tab for each bookmark in the stack and loads them all. So for instance this morning I logged on and hit my "Comedy" stack and it opened a window with Tabs for Penny Arcade / Crazy Apple Rumors / Machall / Rockwood / The Joy of Tech / As the Apple Turns, etc. Fantastic stuff which makes checking all the webcomics and funny stuff I read when I wake up, really simple. Groovy
Well time to get onto some more revision
Later folks!
John
Hi!
I've been bitching quite a lot recently and thats got to stop =]
Penny Arcade just issued another inimitably odd (but funny) strip. These guys are still on fire after so long! I started reading their stuff like 2 years ago and it just gets funnier! If you're not fans of them already then you should be =] Donate to Club PA as well.. I don't really miss the $1 a month and at the end of it you work out its like $12 for loads of extra stuff! At the moment Gabe's drawing a homage to the classic John Woo, 2 handgun film "Hard Boiled" theirs is called "Over Easy" and man is it looking nice so far =]
Called up my dad today. Its odd that I've only been away from HK for about 6 days; it feels far more than that. Anyhow he's planning another trip down here in early february so the family will get some more time together which is nice.. Although at the moment I'm more preoccupied with uni and waiting for the broadband man to arrive and hook me up =] Mmmm.... Wait did that sound homoerotic to you? Ack... Man if some of my HK friends were here they'd be all chorusing "Freudian Slip!". I hate that! Its so lame! I refuse to believe that every slip up I make is consistently influenced by my subconscious. Although curiously they only say it when its stuff that would reflect badly on you. Have you noticed that? I mean if you say "I've got to get some eggs and bread- I mean milk" no one would say "Fruedian slip!!" Yes it is quite clear to me that you have an inner desire for bread.. In a sexual maner too... Probably involving your mother (as all good freudian hypotheses do).
Spoke to a few old friends on MSN today.. Nice to hear from them. Also spoke to Ben and DSG. Those are two good friends of mine who those of you who know me in RL may know of those of you who don't..... eh, its probably better for you not to know them hehehe!
I actually spent most of today revising from the legal method course book for my exam on friday. The best thing about Legal Method is the exam won't ask anything that isn't in that book because the lecturer wrote it. In fact the book is all that the course contains and vise-versa. Lecture 1 of the year was entitled "How I supplement my income by making you all buy the new revision of my book each year" =]
Right time for bed I think seeing as I've practically typed the last paragraph with my eyes closed.. Probably not conducive to grammatical accuracy =]
Right time for sleep
Later folks! Take care!
John
Freeverse just released free online downloadable boardgames filled with their inimitable humor! They have emotidolls which are little translucent people who do gestures for your emotes =] They rock.. I just spent the past 30 minutes playing a whole lot of battleships woo!
My HSBC thing came through in the end, infact it had registered on the same day as it was supposed to but due to the huge latancy in time to get the info to the online service I only found out today =] Maaaaan... I would really like an online banking service which didn't suck so much =]
Later
John
US Judiciary: "Attention America! Bend over!!"
Man I love America, I mean the people there have the best outlook on life, the nicest sense of unbridled patriotism.. If only there weren't so many stupid people..
I mean I say so many because almost 49% of you guys voted for a guy you knew was a crook. I take that stand because I simply can't believe that people who are so intelligent in so many ways honestly believed Bush was a "Straight up the middle kind of guy" 'Stupid White Men' by Micheal Moore ought to be mandatory reading. In truth today is not my day for slagging off Dubya but I'm pissed at Microsoft.. (who isn't?).
I was in a Legal Method tutorial a few months ago, its good fun because our tutor is a complete conspiracy theorist (buildeberg group, trilateral society etc) and someone mentioned anti-trust laws and I said sarcastically "Yeah they work in the US" and I realised how painfully obvious it must be to you guys! But noone seems to make a fuss! I encountered similar brainwashing stupidity in Hong Kong, here was a conversation I had with someone in my last college (He wasn't the more ethically minded guy to tell the truth):
Me: I can't believe Microsoft is trying to wriggle out by giving windows to schools! Thats not a punishment!
Him: Whats wrong with that?
Ok folks.. Lets see, Microsoft has been declared guilty of business related offences. Thats right convicted for all you folks in Texas, that means you can do nasty stuff to them, inject them with whatever it is you use and whatnot. They are criminals how is it so many people don't get it!??! Everyone seems quite happy to carry on despite the fact that they would be entirely right to say:
"Hey I'm buying software from a convicted corporate criminal and financing their anti-competitive activities! Hard work this, time for a Taco!"
Doesn't that bother anyone? It must do because there is protest against the new MSFT settlement but so many people don't get one fact. Your Judiciary doesn't count for squat
"Oh yeah we have an independant judiciary.. They are all elected by the executive wing of government! I can almost smell the Judicial review now! Oh no wait thats my breakfast, nothing like waffles after getting violated by the ruling party!"
You know one day someone who did vote for bush is going to realise that if you let the party in power elect judges then justice is as easily bought and sold as political power! In England theres a fully independant judiciary.. I mean half the law lords spend their time second guessing the executive - now thats how things should be run! Nothing was more sickening to me that when the Supreme court judges ruled entirely on the political slant of the party which put them in power that there should be no re-count "in the name of democracy"! What?? You mean its undemocratic to count all the votes?! Man! There we were in England with our backwards 'unwritten constitution' and we were counting all our votes! I'm feeling soooo stupid now! 4-3 4 Republicans, 3 Democrats..
After that MSFT's escape was a sure thing!! Noone seems to have noticed that MSFT was convicted under one administration and then the new one lets them get away without a sentence!!
Someone has to wake up and say "Hey you know what? If we let our elected officials put judges in power.. The judges will be subject to a political bias! hmm maybe later on this afternoon I can fit that Round block in the Round hole!"
Bad stuff goes on in England too but our press is like a vicious horde of chihuauas.. All nipping at the heels of the establishment (its more vicious than it sounds). The moment a minister puts a foot wrong half his leg is covered in the press-dogs ripping through the Saville Row suit. No chance of counting on favours in court, you know why? Because they don't owe him any!!
Right I think thats the end of my rant.. I saw this episode of Frasier last night and on it Daphne was planning to take her citizenship exam and become an American... Why? I plan on living in the US later on in life, in Hawaii to be exact, I like american people and the non-poluting aspects of the American Dream =] but why would I want to vote? I'd feel all dirty afterwards.. Maybe if Nader was running or something =]
Later
John
(no I don't think Americans suck, read the first part of the post again, you are all great people you just don't seem to care what the people in power do anymore =])
Hiya folks
Well the exam was great =] I really liked the questions ( There were 6 set and you chose 3 of which one was a seen question ), hope it all went well!
Its nice to be back on Genevieve my G4, you do get used to smaller screens but there isn't any replacement for my 17" LCD Studio Display =] All the other ones are absurdly big. I mean who needs 22"? or 23"? Its like having a billboard on your desk, as it is its not possible for me to see all of my screen properly :D
Well with that exam out of the way I have 3 days starting tomorrow to revise for the next one which is nice because its just one book - everything in it is on the exam and I ought to be ok =]
I'm kind of hoping that my credit card payment will come through soon because otherwise it'll mean I've somehow paid someone else £151. It seems unlikely as I agonized about getting all the numbers right but you never know what WebClients can do, especially at HSBC... If only things weren't so convoluted.. I mean it KNOWS I have a credit card on my account, it shows up with the account so would it hurt them to work it so I just have to push a button to pay into it?? Ack! This better not backfire or I'll be abusing HSBC face to face. I take comfort in the fact that if it didn't go into my account I have no idea where the hell else it could go because it has my account number as its destination =]
Anyhow enough of worrying about that, things always work out ok in my experience =] You just have to wait long enough for them to sort themselves out, which is a great phillosophy to have when you have to wait 10-15 days for your broadband to be hooked up ("Just hook it to my blood!!!!")
I'm really tired.. Jet Lag I suppose which is to be expected seing as I didn't re-route my body clock this time. The thing is its not like I'm sleeping at odd hours, I'm just sleeping at odd hours for me, I mean going to sleep at 8-9pm isn't that unusual but I don't normally follow conventional patters like that what with being a student... Actually I take that back, compared to some of the students I know I'm the picture of normality =]
In other news some bloke decided it'd be fun to release Shadowbane the day after my birthday, it seems that cool stuff just happens on my birthday =] Mac OS X was released on my Birthday too, and every year it seems the world outdoes itself to please me =] I know thats a very self-centred opinion to hold but in the words of the Cat from Red Dwarf:
Lister: "The world doesn't revolve around you rimmer"
Cat: "You're damn right! It revolves around me!"
Lister: "huh?"
Cat: "Well how is it everytime something interesting happens to me, I'm in the same room? coincidence? I don't think so!"
Which brings me neatly to my next point about my favourite comic strip at the moment: pooch cafe. Anyone else read it? I love it and I figured I ought to give it some extra coverage because it really is all that and a bag of jaffa cakes Most cartoon dogs are just mini-humans but the cool thing about Pooch cafe is that they have free will but are constantly controlled by their nature. Its like Poncho doesn't know why he drinks out of the toilet he just does it because its in his nature. Superb stuff.. Check it out you know you want to!
I think I ought to claim some nice Virgin airmiles and try and get premium economy check-in.. Its really stupid given that if my father had just bothered to sign up I'd probably be flying free by now. I've worked out that I've spent almost a month of my life on a plane.. Scary stuff =] But it does explain why I'm not afraid of flying =]
On an off topic note: I'm drooling over the 12" Powerbook.. If I had a truly obscene amount of cash I'd have that and a Sony Ericsson T68i and do bluetoothy stuff with them or something... mmm.. Bluetooth.
Well time to logg - off!
Take care folks
later
John
Hi!
Back for more! Exam is tomorrow and I've spent most of the day when I haven't been getting abused by train operators, revising for it. Just as I predicted so far Denning has been a great help thanks to the case list I programmed into him, can't wait to see how useful he can be in the coming semester when more modules require more cases to be remembered and studied. (BTW if you're a First Year Law Student email me and you can download the cases, of course the chances of finding another first year LLB student who has a newton is remote but still I figure I'll help out the community in any way I can).
On the subject of train operators I had to take a buss connector to get round some rail-works and then when I got to Liverpool stree it turns out my return was actually a day one!!! WTF?? How can anyone hear "5 day return" as "day return"!? Thats why I normally use the auto-ticket machine but this time it was broken arrrrgh!! Thats £10 extra just due to crappy human error!! I wouldn't normally get stressed about something like that but at the moment I'm on the hard edge of overheads to afford Broadband and £10 is a lot of money to have snatched from you because some git wasn't doing his job properly.. *sigh*
Still I managed to get some food and cook a passable emulation of my mother's Honey/Soya Sauce/Oniony pork chop thing with rice which was nice.. Her techniques for preparing English Pork really paid off (its not as nice tender as chinese pork)
Right I have some simpsons to watch and more revision to do!
Catch you all later!!!
John
Man I'm tired!
Sorry for the delay, I've been pretty much revising my ass off and being tired for the past few days.. Anyhow I'm back in the UK.
The flight was a laugh, I got assigned a nice low number for my seat (woo! low numbers on ticket = nicer part of plane less prone to turbulence) I arrived at my seat.. 33G.. The bulkhead.. I was in tall guy heaven.. We folks with 34" inseams on our trousers who push 6'3" like bulkheads because we can actually stretch out our legs...
Then some chinese couple turned up with tickets for 33G and F and I realized my ticket actually said 35G and thanks to the tickets being miss-aligned at printing the top of the 5 had been smudged making it look like a 3... Fantastic!
So back in my nice cramped DVT inducing seat I also received the most crappy audio output on the plane so as to annoy my listening =]
However the films had been updated with my all time favourite Disney Movie.. Lilo and Stitch. Ok so I'm a sad git who likes disney movies.. I also happen to know all the words to all the songs.. I'm serious... Wanna know why? Because I once went to the French International School Hong Kong which is on island side. Problem was that I living in Shatin, sure you may not know what that means if you don't live there but I'm able to show you using just ASCI text:
Me
hi all
Stevenote is on the way! Mr. Jobs will say lots of things and I won't hear them because of my complete absence of Bandwidth here in Hong Kong.. However I'm in a great Chat Channel for Think Secret.com so there are lots of people to enlighten me, plus there are 2 weblogs to read for live coverage
Good stuff.
Just came back from dinner out with my father, went off to Grappa's another old family haunt. I'm being subjected to The PGA Senior tour on TV whilst I chat and wait for the Keynote speech.. ack!
Well time to wait for the good stuff!!
pleaaaase give us processors.. All the rumors are for an iTablet... Ought to be fun to watch.. or liste- ok to read someone else relate =]
Later
John
Satan is on TV...
Bill Gates is doing some bogus interview and has so far mentioned 3 of the hundreds of businesses he put out of business with his unfair business practises.. God bless the bought-off DoJ in the US =]
Whats even more funny is the name "Betting it all" *cough*sonoftherichestfamilyinredmondwashingtonbeforehefoundedM$*cough*
hehe
Hello all
I went to see The Lord of the Rings : TTT Yesterday.. I don't really think I need to say anything about it because it rocks and you all know it does.. The Ent's assault on Isengard was brilliantly realised and I almost cried when Gandalf rode, in it was so well done =]
The newspaper article came out this morning which was good.. Amazingly the article was like page 2! You opened the paper and there was my ugly mug ack! Still I'm referred to as "Legal Talent" despite only having done 1 semester haha!
I really ought to write more but soon is the Steve Jobs keynote and I'm a sad macaddict... I need to commune with my fellow mac addicts (read go on the "Think Secret" irc chat channel hehe!)
Catch you later!
John
Maaaaan this weather is good!
I just realised something, I'm sitting with my iBook typing this in hawaiian shorts and a t-Shirt.. That's right, its january 4th and I'm in Shorts because its like baking outside with loads of sun, in fact I was just out brushing up on my tan. I've realised this because the playlist I subconciously selected on iTunes is my Summer Playlist, some good music! Astonishingly its all totally apt for the weather and general feeling at the moment. Oh the bitter news this must be to my good friend Helen who has just left Hong Kong whilst complaining that it was really cold with no sun! Its cruel but I'm just enjoying it waaaaay to much to let that get me down.
Had a nice visit to one of the old family Haunts with my dad, Dan Ryans for the true Dan Ryan's breakfast.. eeeeeexcellent! Its kind of funny doing all the old stuff with my father, a lot of guys my age just don't get on with their dad's but for some reason we've both maintained a similar outlook on life, one could either interpret that as me being very old or him being very young but I can assure you its the later; in his own words "I don't have to be 70 and have a heart attack to realize the important things in life" Good advice for all.. We then went off to Star Computer city, a sizeable computer retail cluster on Kowloon side and I drooled over apple produce at the apple store. At a later point in life (Read: when I start making tangible sums of money) I'm going to personally finance my local apple retailer with my sheer purchasing power =]
Well on the Newton Front Denning has been slightly superflouous as I really haven't gone anywhere to merit taking him, no work for me, although my father is in court on monday so he'll be used to take some notes (I'm not going to pretend that I couldn't use Trevor my iBook for that but I like taking denning as my keyboard usage might constitute more than the accepted noise level from the public box - its not especially loud but I type fast like most other bloggers so its very noticeable ack =]
However I noticed this at Think Secret who apparently suggested the arrival of an Apple Tablet PC at Macworld.. Last year they were 100% accurate on the whole release front so I'm interesterd because I think the current Tablet PC's have serious issues which only a company like apple could address:
Just think of it...Inkwell handwriting recognition, iSync capabilities, Bluetooth and a PCMCIA slot for an optional AirPort card. Just like the iMac, it's time for Apple to innovate again," reports Think Secret. Full story
Sounds a lot like Denning with less expansion slots Lol!!! Last time I described the specs to someone they asked where I bought it - not when it was so far ahead of its time that the MP2100 still considered a pretty beefy piece of kit.. Not surprising given its USD$1000 launch price tag haha!
Later
John
Hiya
Well I had the interview for the South China Morning Post yesterday. I had woken up feeling quite ill but managed to go through the interview on an adrenaline high so I didn't feel even the slightest bit unwell.. That changed at the end of the interview about 30 minutes after the reporter and photographer had left and the decision was made not to fly that day =] I'm in Hong Kong for a bit longer and after last night's feverous nausea I'm very glad I wasn't on a plane and only inclined the 20˚ or so that plane seats let you go. I really needed that flat surface =/
The article should be published on Monday..
Today's prospects are a day of sitting around and reading because I'm definitely not leaving the house =]
Dry toast for breakfast was a breakthrough as previously I didn't even manage to keep a biscuit down.. Did you folks need to hear that? Nope =]
Right I'm going to do some emailing and sitting.. I think the worst of the storm is over =]
Later
John
Man I'm tired!
Had a blast last night, the best thing about hong kong at the New Year is that we get it first! In fact I've recovered from getting home at 5am 12 hours later and you guys in the US aren't even counting down till midnight!
The party was fantastic and had pretty much everyone from Shatin College so it was a great laugh. Eric got completely f**** up after losing spectacularly and with alarming regularity at a drinking game.. Loads of fun and I learned a valuable lesson - I'm not going near another tequila shot again, You've got to be pretty damn smashed to willingly fry your throat like that =] 1 is enough for one lifetime for me thanks (at least until I get really drunk and say "heyyyyy.. I'd like a taaaakilaaa shot abaat now!")
After finishing with a viewing of the Ali-G Movie on VCD (Very Crap Disc) which rocked =] I decided to leave in the hope of actually getting to Gold Coast before the morning.. Man I love the HK transport system, the taxi to the station was dirt cheap, then I got to use my octopus card a lot to get to central via the KCR/MTR and then waited for about 45 minutes for a bus (damn night buses =]) and beeped it again =] All I can say is that it was a good thing I had put about HKD$100 on it before I left Hong Kong this summer!
I woke up at about 2pm and actually found out my dad had slept till then too. Of course he had actually gone to sleep at about 12:30am what with being at home so he just got a looooot of sleep rather than just being in need of some sleep after 20 hours awake. We had a nice afternoon sitting around and chatting and stuff, reminiscing on the years I used to make the journy over for the summer to spend lots of time with Pops in Hong Kong, realised that, that was exactly what I was doing this New Year haha! The tradition lives on, I was struck with the parallel of me aged 10 and me yesterday, sitting and reading quietly whilst my father had some sort of meeting, of course then it was the seminal Dorling Kindersley classic "how things work" (Before it got re-released) and now it was "Anson's Contracts" that I was reading...
I'm going to have a shower soon, I love having shorter hair. I like the fact that its so easy to dry =].... Did I Just type that?!?!?! Did someone slip me some Estroegen tablets or something?? Haha!
Catch you all later!
Johna