Ten (mostly interesting) things about me

I've been, let's call it, "tagged" to do this. So, without further ado here it is

Ten (mostly interesting) things about me :)

1. I've marched on the two major football stadiums in this state (Lambeau Field in Green Bay and Camp Randall in Madison [that was when it was still Astroturf and I almost took a nosedive in the endzone there]). The trip to Lambeau was on the Sunday that the Lewinski report came out from Congress and I remember it being passed around the coach being read by half of the band. After the game, a camera came into the bus while we were all changing; that was not appreciated.


2. A roll of pictures that I took is either rolling around the country inside a loungecar on a train or has been tossed out. It fell in somewhere west of Pittsburgh while we were on the way to Washington for my school's band to participate in the Inaugural Parade for President Bush (I would have marched in the parade, but the directors and I agreed that it probably was for the best that I did not as there was no way to "get out" of the parade as it was under such tight security).


3. On said trip to Washington, I got warned by a guard in the US Senate for writing down the name of the Senator who was speaking at the time - Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Ironically, the pen I used to write the name was the same one that was given to everyone in my group as the result of having a lunch in one of the office buildings; I still have it - it's a pen for the pro basketball team that one of our Senators owns.


4. I once went to a dance. I appeared on time (as it would be bad to be late to a social function as I had always thought); nobody was there and people got on my case for being on time. By the end of the night I was still alone and one of my so-called "friends" had gotten me pissed off because they wouldn't talk to me.


5. My first year in college was spent in a dorm room with four other people - all of whom (if I'm remembering correctly) had a root in the room at one point or another in the year. Most of the time I'd have to sleep on the couch in the "main" room of the suite.


6. On the first day that I was up at college, my computer broke down. While I didn't lose any data (fortunately), I ended up spending $45 on a new power supply that didn't fix the problem. It wasn't until over New Year's that the problem was diagnosed to be a faulty Floppy Drive - that diagnosis was done at a computer shop down here; the one up in Minnesota said they'd do the analysis if I exchanged the new power supply for it.


7. I once ventured around the city of Saint Paul, MN in February wearing socks and sandals on my feet (I was using the bus, but had to wait a while to catch one). Just to clarify, I was fully clothed with a winter jacket on as well. ;)


8. I've been banned from a chatroom for disagreeing with the owner's philosophy. It was a political chatroom. Most of the people there (I believe) disagreed with me anyway, but the didn't support my banning. And it wasn't just a user has been banned from this room type ban - it was a server ban. So, I decided to open a new room on a different server that I knew wouldn't ban me (it was a public server) and invited the people who were my main supporters to be part of it.


9. In that chatroom, a person posted a link to a page where a guy played around with a (as the author put it) "dumb Nigerian con-artist". It was my first touch of baiting; I got hooked into it reading about how someone actually got money from them. I will say that I have never attempted to do that, but I did try to get funny pictures of them. Baiting for cash is something that I will never condone or do, and you shouldn't do it either.


10. I used to hand-publish a blog on my ISP account; it was based on a blog that I had seen here which has now been taken down in place of single posts. In fact, I had made it so that it looked almost exactly like the page did. I probably still have the files for it as I am a packrat who hates getting rid of anything (I still have emails, on a CD, from 2000 and 2001; unfortunately I don't think I still have any of the SMH/The Age AM Alerts that I used to receive in the late '90s).

If you're a new visitor to the site, I hope you keep coming back. I do my best to write something everyday, but I do miss a day or two at times.

One last tidbit - I wasn't wanting to do it, but when I started to write the last ones, more good memories came back to me and I replaced the original number one which was that I'd never been on a date.

Others who've done it - I'm Not Craig, Tom Gara, Aly, Watershedd, Mrs Batville

A photo for today

One of the things about going back to "standard" time is the sunset being earlier (though the scene would have happened at the same time just the clocks say it's an hour later during Daylight Saving). In fact, I thought I had set the camera back the one hour but apparently I didn't. Either way, this was taken just after 5 pm today looking toward the west-northwest. This has not been altered, except for some cropping and resizing. Enjoy!

Some random thoughts

Well, another day went by without a post. For me, blogging doesn't come as easily as it does for others, but I am making an effort to write more often than I have been writing. I know that I had mentioned the plethora of photos that I have on my computer, and I really should take some time to go through them again and get some choice shots to post.

However, I am a very lazy person - or so it would seem. I always get started on one thing, but end up doing about a hundred other things and never finishing the original task that I had set out to do in the first place. This post is a great example of that. I had started to write it before I went to bed, but I got really tired and decided to go to sleep.

So, anyway, I had some random thoughts; first off, while at the local home store, there was a woman who was walking through the Christmas display (the first aisle with the outdoor figurines; they also have some aisles with indoor displays and a full range of artifical, pre-decorated trees) and said out loud to her (I would assume) husband "This is all their Christmas CRAP." -- and that was the way she said it, even going so far as popping the P in crap. I would have liked to go up to her and say, "Yeah, it's their christmas section; it's a big money-maker for them. If you're looking for something else, why not ask one of their employees?" Another sign of the times is that the Danish Butter Cookies are out for sale again; sure you can get them any time of the year provided you know where to look, but it's only at Christmastime when they're omnipresent.

Next; while watching TV last night, there was an ad for a racing collectible auction site, and the person who was pictured as participating in their auctions appeared to be wearing a replica shirt from the Toll/HSV Dealer Team (it was a black shirt and I swear that there was a Holden logo on the right side of the shirt). I went to said website and didn't (shockingly) find any Holden memorabilia for sale there.

Lastly, in the time since I mentioned Firefox's new search behavior, there have been some new threads about the problem on the Mozillazine forums.

Web Search
<CTRL>-K works different in 2.0

Time Change

Well, this is the weekend where people in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere have a 25-hour day to offset the 23-hour day that was had in the Spring. For some reason, there's always this awareness of the "new" time in the next week or day when doing things - for example, observing that the meal that you eat at 6.00 PM on the Saturday before the change would in fact, if it were served at the exact same time 24 hours later, would be at 5.00 PM on the Sunday. Interestingly, there are people in government who seem to think that it will serve us well to have a further month of "adjusted" time - i.e. making it 8 months on Daylight Saving, 4 months off.

I don't see the point, especially when you consider that at the very beginning and end of the period the sun will be coming up at sometime around 8 AM or later. Though on the other end of it, now we have sunrise at 6.30 AM or so, but sunset will now come at around 4.30 PM and it will be dark by 6.00 PM.

Interestingly, this is the same weekend that some parts of the Southern Hemisphere go onto Daylight Saving (in particular the states in Australia that choose to partake in the fun {though Tasmania changed a couple of weeks ago already}). It's a double-edged sword - in one way, it's better with my being in standard time because one of my favourite radio shows, This Sporting Life now runs from 9 PM - 12 AM instead of the summer timeslot of 11 PM - 2 AM; but it makes connecting with people down under nearly impossible during the week as it's usually midnight there when I get up at 7 AM my time.

I guess it's just something you get used to. At least until it changes again in March. ;)

Movies...

A while back, I mentioned a box of DVDs that I got. Taking a hard look at what's in there, I don't think I'd watch half of these movies. For example - Agent Cody Banks (1 and 2), Spy kids (1 and 3d), The Fly II, Boa, Mimic 2, The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Seriously, how many copies of that movie were sold? 100 maybe? How about "John Boorman's The Emerald Forest"? What a DVD this one is. The special features are as follows - Original Theatrical Trailer. Oh, and French & Spanish subtitles.

I have to say that the most exciting features are on "The Never Ending Story II" - Interactive Menus! Theatrical Trailer! Scene Access! and the ever exciting Portugues track!

For the most part, I am so glad I didn't have to pay for these videos - I mean, who's going to pay for "Don Juan DiMarco"? or "The Craft"?

I should mention that there are maybe one or two movies that I'd watch - Short Circuit is one. I really don't know if there are others. Some of them have commentary tracks, so that could be interesting viewing.

Something a bit different

I admit that I'm kind of steady in my tastes of food, but I am willing to try different options. Take, for example, putting pickled beet on a hamburger. You'd think that it's disgusting (for those who haven't tried beet yet, I do recommend it - they don't taste as bad as their reputation might suggest; just make sure you have a good cleaning method), but in fact it tastes pretty good.

The latest experiment I've done is to put a piece of pineapple (warm, being cooked in the pan before making the hamburger) on the sandwich; and I have to say that I really didn't notice it except when having it apart from the burger, but it did add some nice sweetness to the meal. It's a slow process, but I'll work my way up to the full Aussie burger (a version of which can be seen here).

I've also been experimenting with some different veg combinations for Chinese food, the latest being Zucchini, green peppers, carrots, corn and broccoli. Not bad, but it isn't very colorful.

Lastly, in my search for recipes/pictures of the Aussie burger, I managed to find this site - The food pornographer. A very interesting read, and some just great photos of various foods. Yes, more proof that I am strange ;)

Why I won't upgrade to Firefox 2.0

There was some mention that today would be the day that Firefox 2.0 would come out. However, I've been testing it out for the last few weeks on my laptop system and there is only one thing that is keeping me from upgrading.

In version 1.5 (and maybe in earlier versions, but I'm not too sure about that), a neat little feature was introduced to those who like to save some real estate on their screen - a dialog window that would pop up when you hit Control+K (or, as I didn't realize until recently, Control+E) that duplicated the function of the search bar in the navigation toolbar.

In version 2.0, they changed the behaviour to one where if you hide the search in the navigation toolbar, you're forced to use the Firefox Start page (which, for some versions is considered the default start page, but I have opted since I started using firefox to use the Firefox Central page, which was updated to the 2.0 look a couple of days ago).

As had been mentioned in this thread which I had posted in to echo the sentiments of the original poster, it's a step backwards to force people who don't want to use up that screen space into using a single option for their searches.

I challenge the contributors to the Firefox project (or even those who can make extensions) to find a way to fix this problem, so that those of us who prefer the search box to be able to use it once again.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

It's getting close to Halloween, so that means time for the Christmas commercials to come out; of course, I had seen ads for music a few weeks ago, but in the stores, you see the signs - an ornament here, a figurine there; but they weren't advertising their wares for sale. That is, until tonight when I just saw an ad for Lowe's Christmas selection.

Of course, nothing beat the local pharmacy who would bring out their ornament collection for sale sometime in the summer and held a Christmas Open House in October. Other stores in the area begin their Christmas season around this time - the most notable is a regional chain of farm supply stores (really, it's a place you can get just about everything from TVs to bread to pelleted horse feed, and even high-visibility clothing up to size 4X) who send out a catalog to every household in the area to tout the fact that their special toy section (it's just the lawn and garden area with a sign proclaiming "Toyland") is opening at 7 am on the second Saturday of October.

So, here's to two months of increasing caroling songs and the excitement of overdone consumerism. :)

Australia Revealed

I just got done watching Discovery Atlas - Australia Revealed (Discovery Asia site)

Narrated by Russell Crowe, the program features stories of various Aussies told by the actual people, with the story of a linking of two Aboriginal tribes (one in the Northern deserts, and another in the rainforests of Far North Queensland) being the common thread among all of the stories. It also featured things that shows about Aussie culture usually have - footy and the opal mines of Coober Pedy.

One line, which I should have taken note of when it was said, involved the feeling that there is a mystique about terra australis that, once you catch onto it, you fall hard. I have to admit that I've fallen for the mystique.

There really isn't much way to say what it is that gets you hooked - for some it's the fact that the land is so isolated yet integrated; for others it's the chance to get yourself a new start in a new land that is still young enough to not have had the problems that others have. Yet others are attracted by the great surfing that there is off the coasts.

For those who haven't seen it, the program reairs in a little over an hour at 9 pm Pacific, and you can consult your local guide to see when it airs in your specific area if you're not here in the States (but if I'm remembering correctly, the Discovery Atlas series is airing on a two-week delay in Australia at least).

Oh by the way, they do mention some of the "giant objects" around the country ;)

Let us go to a time...

...when Tom Cruise was still sane! Specifically, 1986, when movie goers were treated to some great sounds coming from the speakers, one which probably sold many home theatre systems when this movie came out on videotape, and later on DVD. So which movie am I speaking of? Top Gun.

Like Ferris Bueller, I don't think that this movie could be made today; not so much because the story is bad, but because I do not think that the Department of Defense would be as willing to give such technical support to movie-makers. The story might have been a little unusual, but you find me someone who hasn't had a crush on a teacher (for me it was my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. M... who had the most darling southern accent, but wasn't too appreciative when I asked a doctor about how long the typical labor lasts while she was very pregnant but I digress).

Interestingly, I had a different experience in watching this movie, as it was 1) broadcast on TV so that meant commercial breaks and language being taken out (that was noticeable only once or twice though) and 2) I had my mom watching it with me and (I'm thinking that this is a common trait) she always has to comment on things, though from time to time she makes an interesting insight. Two comments that she made that are interesting are that 1) This probably was the movie that "made" Meg Ryan, and 2) it was unfortunate that everyone seemed to be shorter than Tom - something most noticeable in the scene at the end of the movie on the carrier deck.

One thing that I was glad of was that I decided to play it on the computer as I have a sound system with a subwoofer on it, and having the bass really helped out the cause. I don't think it would have sounded right only on the TV, plus by playing it on the computer, I couldn't be distracted by other things on the system (though I did allow myself to do things during the adbreaks, one of which came right at the climax of the movie when they were in the final dogfight with the MiGs--and I think it was the longest adbreak of the show).

For some reason, I had thought that the scene in which Maverick's plane goes down was a dream, only to have it turn out to be real when we see him in the infirmary totally distraught. Also, I could have sworn that when they were lifting Goose into the helicopter, he had moved, though I could be wrong about that. :)

This is, I think, a movie that I had seen before, but I didn't remember one thing about it though the scene in the beginning where Mav is told about his wingman's leaving the service. Another thing that was familiar to me was Tom's laugh - one which is somewhat infamous for being so outrageously fake, and is played from time to time (as a long laugh) by a local radio station.

I can't think of much more to say about this film other than that it was good, and if we didn't have the FCC thinking that they can control cable TV and broadcasters who think that they have to clean things up for airing (i.e. taking the word shit out of movies), it'd be a more appreciable experience, but there is always the original movie version out there; one without ad breaks!

A musical query

I was listening to the radio today, and the person who was on-air at the time made attributed a comment to one of the members of the All-American Rejects which said that sometimes people confuse them with the Crash Test Dummies.

Actually knowing something about music, I thought to myself, "hmm, maybe, but I've not heard any of their music so I can't make much of a comparison". Unfortunately, the guy on the radio commented on the fact that they didn't look like them (obviously in reference to the full-scale human models). And to think this guy is the program director of the station; then again, this is a station that claims to play the hits of today, yet they only recently started playing Beyoncé and the Black Eyed Peas.

Sometimes I outdo myself

I've mentioned this more than a few times that I have a TV card on my computer and now I'm getting into converting videotapes over to DVDs. Tonight I did my first full race using this method - 4 hours worth of video that was a total of 13.6 gig, cutting commercials out dropped that to a mere 10.9 gig. However, there was one thing that I forgot to do: stop the VCR playback (it's not connected to a regular tv, just to the computer). It's not a life-threatening thing, but it did put a smile on my face :)

Boring tasks

Sometimes, I do really boring stuff. For example, I have started to catalog my vast collection of video tapes again. It was something that I had started last year, but kinda lost steam after about 30 tapes. So far, I've done 8 or so in the last two days, and I remembered why it's boring - all the fast-forwarding, reversing and trying to figure out where programmes change over from one to another, which is especially fun when you record the direct input from a cable box where you change the channels.

But, it's worth doing as I am wanting to get some of this stuff onto more stable storage like DVDs, both as converted footage and as proper DVDs.

If only there was a way to directly convert video that I record (which is already in DVD compatible MPEG2 format) to proper DVD files, that'd be great.

Movies

Well, I had said I'd try to get this out before conking out, but obviously that didn't quite work out to plan ;)

In the past I had managed to miss most, if not all, of the movies that have importance in the world of pop culture. Now, the reason is either 1) I was too young to have remembered it or to have seen it at first, or 2) I wasn't interested in watching it.

Among the movies that fit into this category are - The Back to the Future trilogy, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the most recent movie that I have watched, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

In the modern world of movies, I wonder if one about a high-school student skipping school would manage to be made, but in the '80s, it was allowable for producers and directors to have creative ideas for movies, most of which didn't involve either remaking a movie from the past, adapting a TV show, or a sequel of a previously made lame movie.

Anyway, when I watch a movie, I generally go into it with a clean slate and do not expect anything about it. This time, for the most part, was no different, except for a scene in the beginning. A satellite provider here has been running ads where we see Ben Stein calling the roll and calling for Bueller. Of course, the ad says that he's home experiencing the wonderfully clear digital picture and sound of the satellite system. However, the "reality" of that situation is that he had done a poor acting job and managed to convince his parents to give him his 9th day off for the semester - a problem that he would fix later using the computer his parents had given him (something that is never really resolved, but we can assume that the principal had a few words with *someone* about this).

One thought (honestly!) that I had while watching the movie was whether or not any of the actors had done anything since then, not realising (i.e. not seeing the intro credit that said "Matthew Broderick", and apparently forgetting about seeing Ben Stein) who the people in the movie were.

Moving on, one thing that I didn't know about the movie was that it was set in Chicagoland, something revealed in the very first scene of the film when we hear the radio play WLS. Having been to Chicago, I can say that it is a pretty cool city, and (as mentioned in the credits) the paintings shown in the Institute of Art are ones that are there. The thing that kind of surprised me was that they showed "Nighthawks", but didn't show one of the hallmarks of the collection (more in the pop sense than anything), Grant Wood's "American Gothic".

One minor error (or it could be correct) is that I don't remember a viewing theatre at the Chicago Board of Trade. I believe that you can still go there and view trading on the floor, but that might have changed thanks to someone thinking that some lunatic might go in and try to go after the commodity traders on the floor there. One thing that was also very cool was hearing the late Harry Caray calling a Cubs game with what was the distinctive calling style of the '80s and earlier - let the pictures do the talking, and let people hear the natural sound every once in a while. Nowadays, I think the networks are afraid to not have silence for more than five seconds as they must think that people will tune out if they aren't talking.

I digress, having to mention that you could tell that the carhop in the parking garage was trouble from the get-go just from his look. I was very surprised that he did return the car (despite having driven it a hundred miles or so around the city) when they came back. I also would be remiss if I didn't mention the hilarious scenes with the Principal, a man who seemingly can't catch a break, especially with the dog in the yard. The thing that I was the most surprised about was that Ferris' sister ended up helping him out after being the first one to suss out the fact that he wasn't sick after all.

Some questions to think about...

- Did Sloane get into trouble for not having a dead grandmother?
- Did Principal Rooney get his car back?
- How many pencils were in the secretary's hair?
- Would Bueller be charged with fraud after all these people who donated money found out he wasn't sick?
- How badly did Cameron's ass get kicked?
- Did anyone actually figure out that it was Cameron who was the one that was really sick (unless, of course, that was a ploy too)?

Politics

I don't talk about politics that much, mainly because I'm sick of it, and because I have my way of thinking, and that's my business for the most part. I tend to lean to the right of centre, but I can see the point that others can make.

However, today a couple of things happened - first was a letter for a candidate for the local Sheriff arrived; I didn't open it, but I'm sure it's either a) a reminder to vote for the candidate or b) asking for money. Interestingly, the candidate in question came to our house to deliver a yard sign for us to put up (yes, we did ask for one).

The other thing that happened is that someone called from the party that I had actually volunteered to help out with a get-out-the-vote effort two years ago. When asked about if I'd be interested, I actually said (and considering how vocal I was about it two years ago) that I wasn't terribly interested in it this time around. As it is, the candidates that they were barracking for probably are going to win my particular county, so I kinda fail to see the point ;)

Argh!

Sometimes, it seems that you can't win. Especially, it seems, when it comes to internet-based listener loyalty contests. One of the local radio stations has a contest where you listen to their broadcast at one of four times per day, and they give a code that you get 100 or 1000 points for. You can trade these points in for things.

In the past, it was a case of they'd open it whenever they felt like it and you never knew when things would come up.

Now, they have it so that they tell you that (in this particular instance) "This item will be available on October 19 at 10:00 am".

So, it's 10:00:00 AM on the 19th of October, and the item is available. I click Select the item (hell, i had turned images off so that i could see the redemption link right on the first load without scrolling). I confirm the item and get this message:

"SORRY: The item you have selected is no longer available"

Fuck! So, being not quite totally together sometimes, and thinking that trying again and again will change things, I repeat the process about 10 times, with the same result until it comes with the message - "SORRY! The maximum for this item has been reached" and the item is then listed as "Not available"

I know it's the internet and there are variables, but it doesn't make any fucking sense that an item that's available at 10:00:00 can be gone by 10:00:03.

If I had to think of something, I'd say that they were screwing people like me because, in my area, there are two different cable providers. Unfortunately, I am subscribed to the one that is the minority carrier - the one that serves the (in essence) far outer suburbs, and receives absoultely no coverage. However, I think that the other cable company (who offers much more services than the one we have) pays off the radio stations, tv station, and newspaper to advertise their product so that they have an advantage. Of course, the advantage doesn't make much sense as these companies don't really compete as us customers don't have a choice as to our cable company (aside from switching to satellite), as our local government chooses the cable company for us.

Though the thing is I did try to get it, and that's really all I can do :)

More fun with YouTube

YouTube is really a site where you can totally get lost in watching what's out there. For some folks, it's music videos, for others, the totally random stuff. For me, it's seeing videos of sports from the recent past. Today's journey started with watching a clip from Ken Burns' "Baseball" about Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. That then led me to searching for the game announcer, Vin Scully. A video of the Shea crowd singing along with Queen's "We Will Rock You" led me to this video from 1985 featuring Bob Costas.

That led to the following -

• A clip from Game 5 of the 1980 World Series with Bryant Gumbel in the NBC NFL studio


• NBC News Update during the pregame for Game 3 of the '80 World Series, featuring a commercial for Polaroid and a network promo


• The Intro to Sunday Night Football from 1989 on ESPN

That got me searching for ESPN; watched a few videos of that, then added Nascar to that search, and then I got lost :)

I watched racing videos from all through the years, from the 1976 Daytona 500 to the IRL race at Watkins Glen in June this year - with the "international" commentary with Larry Rice and Gary Lee - those who might remember the old Thursday Night Thunder on ESPN would remember the old "Larry and Gary" show.

The search for nostalgia ended in watching this video where I find the commentary absolutely hilarious.

In all, I've thoroughly enjoyed the hours I've been spending on the 'tube (and on Wikipedia). It's definitely something I need to do more often, and stop worrying about what people are talking about in different sections of the internets. :)

I so want this...

From Gearlog -

Dell spokespeople were pleased as punch to show off the new 20.1" E207WFP LCD monitor...With a maximum resolution of 1,680x1,050 (SXGA+) and a 5-millisecond response time, the E207WFP lends itself well to gaming or simple office work. Connectors include S-Video and DVI with HDCP so you play copy-protected HD content easily. And, the attached stand can twist and tilt so you can find the best viewing angle.

The price? A paltry $289.

DVDs

This isn't about the DVDs I mentioned earlier, rather making my own DVDs of material that I recorded from the TV. I really wish there was some (free) way to say, "Ok I've recorded this material in mpeg2 format, let me just burn it right to a DVD+R and it'll play on the DVD player." In fact, I'm sure there is something that will allow this exact thing to happen; but I just haven't found it yet even though I am a whiz usually at finding stuff out there.

Right now the process that I have to go through is this -

Step 1. Record TV show using USB Tuner card into MPEG2 format. (Time: Length of the program)
Step 2. Edit the file to cut commercials and overlap. (Time: about 5-15 minutes, depending upon how many breaks there are)
Step 3. Re-encode the MPEG2 video into XviD using either Auto GordianKnot or Staxrip. (Time: Anywhere from 1.5 to 2+ times the length of the original program; time could theoretically be saved by using a one-pass encode, but I usually encode to a specific file size)
Step 4. Convert XviD video file back to a DVD compatible format using avi2dvd. This includes going through the source file to find potential chapters and create a menu card. (Time: For the 90-ish minutes of video that I did today, it took 6:54:29, ending just as the final installment of the show I had been recording was starting. The vast majority of this time (6 hours 27 minutes 44 seconds) was taken up re-encoding the video)
Step 5. Burn the disc image to a blank DVD. (Time: About 7 minutes)
Step 6. Enjoy the fruits of the computer's labour. :)

I'm sure there are other DVD programs that can do this in a quicker timeframe than 7 hours, and I could have sped the process up a little bit by not using the computer for other things whilst it was encoding the video, as the second pass was done a little bit quicker than the first pass.

Anyway, it'll save $150 or so; that's the pledge that the public TV station who produced the program are requesting for the DVD set, admittedly, it'll be more flash than mine, but it's nice to be able to something like this for yourself.

Hmmmm

This is very interesting. According to the list posted here, he is in possession of one of the railroads. As it so happens, and I am completely honest about this, I have all three of the other railroads. I'm wondering if it'd be worthwhile to maybe, ahem, swap the pieces and share the prize. The only concern I'd have is that it'd probably be against the rules of the promotion....

Very interesting, no?

UPDATE - It looks like I was wrong; I'm not a millionaire; what I thought was the one piece he had was the one piece that is rare. Ah well; I've got $2 to spend at Best Buy and a free Breakfast Sandwich.... :)

TV Stuff

Tonight marked the premiere of the "new" series called Vas o No Vas - literally "Go or no go", but it's just the latest incarnation of the worldwide hit Deal or No Deal - just 1) in Spanish and 2) with a smaller grand prize ($250,000 compared to big sister NBC's $1 million plus). Also interesting are the differences in the gameplay - they're slight but noticeable.

First is the "Tentación" case (poratfolio) that they have - for the one player that I saw, the case contained a Ford vehicle of both unknown type and cost. Second is the way that the offer from the banker is made - instead of using a telephone to tell the host what the offer is, they have a phone, ring it, but then send out another model to reveal the offer - yet there's a female voiceover who does that bit; the case that the model carries out contains the word "oferta" (offer). In the end, the contestant walked away with $37,900 (this after turning down an offer about 10k larger then revealing the $125,000 case); as it wound up, he would have ended up with $25 if he'd played through to the end.

Also, I'm finally closing the book on Rockstar - I've had the raw recordings of the two finale episodes sitting around since they aired last month, and I still am to take out the commercials and convert them to a more common format; I'm going to be doing that tonight :)

Dear Australian Idol viewers

What the fuck are you thinking? Why is this guy still around, and why is such a shitty arrangement of a disco song getting such good reviews?

Watch and decide for yourselves (beware, however, you might need a new keyboard if you're drinking anything)

Top 5 on Friday

One blog that I found is Music Memoirs where they have occasional memes. This week's Top 5 on Friday are five (or if you want, seven ;)) songs with a day of the week. Here's my list, in no particular order -

• Sunday Morning - Maroon Five


• Friday I'm in Love - The Cure


• Saturday In the Park - Chicago


• Manic Monday - The Bangles


• Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2

Heh, this is a reminder of how limited my musical knowledge still somewhat is. I spent time trawling through CDDB to find Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ah well, I'm learning more about music, and that's a good thing. ;)

When you don't have AAA

Or in the case of this guy, the RAC WA.

Story on news.com.au and Reuters

A MAN has been charged over reversing his car at speed on a West Australian highway.

Traffic police were surprised to clock the 22-year-old's car travelling at just 56km/h in a 110km/h zone yesterday on the Great Eastern Highway outside Coolgardie, 546km east of Perth.

What do I listen to?

Well, you can find that out by checking out my last.fm profile. You'll also see the most recent songs that I've played in the sidebar, just below the links :)

This is just wrong

Take a look at these nails.

Who in their right mind would let them grow that long?

Another new thing

Observant readers have noticed that I've placed a little section called "My Library" on the sidebar. This is a great thing from Library Thing where you can catalogue all of your books that you own. These, for the most part, are books that I've read over the last year or so, or am planning to read or am currently reading..

Changes in Links

I've changed around the links at the right to more reflect the sites I actually visit. It's not that I don't visit some of the sites I had there in the past, it's just that I don't visit them that often.

A good policy

From Thailand, where they just had a coup, the new Prime Minister has outlined a new primary policy for the people - happiness. It's a good policy not just for government, but for everyone. :)