The Little Harmonic Labyrinth

Coffee on my mind...

2011-09-01T23:18:00.000+10:00

Had one thing on my mind a lot recently...

Instant vending machine coffee in Seoul (60c!)

See older posts for actual decent coffee in this city!

Wicked espresso, Vancouver

Cafe Junior Italian Tomato, Tokyo

(amazing example of Japanese engrish)

Costa mug the size of my head, London

Lebanese coffee dregs, Sydney (accompanied by a belly dancer)

Campos Superior, French Press, consumed at day break on top of Mt. Kosciusko, Australia

Home espresso adventures and puck analysis

Pitt on Pitt St, Sydney, serving Toby's Estate

Pink and pink, Friday afternoon snack

Singapore Airlines lounge at SYD, served in lovely Givenchy designed wares

Jama Michalika, Krakow Poland

Oldest and original cafe in the city.

Propaganda bar, Krakow Poland

Alchemy bar, Krakow Poland

Bled train station, Slovenia

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Waiting for my espresso, Slovenia

Whoops, how did that get in there...

Waiting for my double at Mama Coffee, Prague

Cafe Mozart, Vienna

Cafe Prückel, Vienna

Karl Marx and friends lived here

Slacklining

2011-01-17T15:08:00.000+11:00

Making Ristrettos

2011-01-17T13:33:00.001+11:00

Machine: Gaggia Classic
Grind: Campos Kenyan Rurai Microlot Grand Cru

RJB 105BSP

2010-11-07T21:06:00.000+11:00

Opinel in its Element

2010-10-12T19:51:00.001+11:00

My 8cm Opinel in action.

Seoul's cafe scene

2010-04-17T22:31:00.000+10:00

The place is riddled with Starbucks, Tom n Toms, Coffee Bean, Pascucci... all the hopeless chains.

However this brilliant blog post over at Discover Korea covers two cafes that are absolutely worth a visit.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of Coffeest the most, however coffee was very acceptable at both.

Some snaps from Cubae Duream / Coffee of Dream.

Lunch with a view

2010-04-13T00:07:00.000+10:00

Denim Deconstructed

2010-03-30T15:28:00.002+11:00

Bukhan Sanseong

2010-03-22T14:54:00.003+11:00

On the Waterfront

2010-01-27T09:28:00.003+11:00

Was re-watching the classic film 'On the Waterfront' and I'm really digging Brando's jacket.

It's available at Aero Leather Clothing. Just search for 'waterfront' in the search bar and you'll get what you're looking for :-)

New Glasses -- Ray Ban 5184

2009-12-26T22:12:00.002+11:00

The Style of Philippe Petit

2009-12-26T22:07:00.002+11:00

Caps taken from the Documentary Man on Wire

x264 GPU decoding with DXVA

2009-12-19T12:02:00.005+11:00

GPU accelerated x264 1080p decoding is something I've wanted for a long time. Finally I succumbed and bought a shiny new nVidia GTS 250 and installed it in my HTPC.

This link is a great guide for setting up Media Portal.

Slightly updated instructions are:

Grab the standalone filters from MPC-HC sourceforge page
Unzip and copy the file MPCVideoDec.ax to C:\Program Files\MPC Filters
Run the command: regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\MPC Filters\MPCVideoDec.ax"
Optionally follow the step about running RadLight Filter Manager, hopefully it will default to the correct settings.
Then you need to fire up Media Portal Configuration and in the Video section make sure you set your H.264 codec to be MPC Video Decoder.

Tilt Shift meets iPhone

2009-10-07T20:23:00.002+11:00

Latest cop

2009-09-02T09:31:00.002+10:00

Good Look -- Jeremiah Johnson

2009-06-20T14:13:00.003+10:00

Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson:

Compared to latest Nom De Guerre F/W 09 collection...

And some more fine examples of mountain man style.

Europe here I come...

2009-04-30T11:44:00.002+10:00

England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, France and Italy...

I'm on my way!

When dogs attack!

2009-04-05T19:28:00.002+10:00

A Sunday morning run which ended badly... 3 puncture wounds in my left leg -- one on my calf and 2 in the shin area.

Note to self: next time just keep running!

Note to reader: yeah I know, I have hairy legs!

Piano Excerpt - Rachmaninoff: Prelude in C# Minor

2009-03-31T22:54:00.004+11:00

Recorded in 2003.

Welcome to Cabramatta!

2009-03-02T09:52:00.002+11:00

Come back soon!

Australia Day @ Melbourne

2009-01-28T10:55:00.005+11:00

Trigger Equipment

The main batch of fireworks in the botanical gardens

Triple J Hottest 100

2009-01-08T09:08:00.002+11:00

Shortlist

Here's my shortlist with YouTube links...

Boat People, The - Awkward Orchid Orchard
Children Collide - Farewell Rocketship
Emiliana Torrini - Jungle Drum
Empire Of The Sun - Half Mast
Flight Of The Conchords - Hiphopopotamus Vs Rhymenoceros
Flight Of The Conchords - Inner City Pressure
Killers, The - Human
Lily Allen - The Fear
Lupe Fiasco - Paris, Tokyo
Mates Of State - Now
MGMT - The Youth
Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1
Muph & Plutonic - Don't Worry About Nothing
Sigur Ros - Within Me A Lunatic Sings
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Wombats, The - Is This Christmas?

Poster Typo

2009-01-07T09:32:00.000+11:00

Music Gear

2009-01-05T20:47:00.003+11:00

It's about time I made a post about my music gear.

I run Ableton Live 7, keyboard is an M-Audio Axiom 61, Headphones are Allessandro MS-2, Pads are a Kord PadKontrol, speakers are Altec Lansing FX6021. These days I'm actually running Live from my Quad Core Windows box which is much smoother!

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-01T10:39:00.002+11:00

Welcome to 2009...

Warning Poster

2008-12-10T16:45:00.003+11:00

I stumbled across this poster on the blog-o-sphere and decided it would be fun to stick a copy on the work notice board without telling anyone. People would stand and stare with dazed looks on their faces. Someone even removed another notice to give it a more prominent position. All I can say is, it's now a part of the family along with xkcd "Voting Machines"!

Indigo Blood

2008-12-10T16:40:00.005+11:00

Here's why you don't wear good shoes for the first few weeks after buying new denim...

Flippin' Cars

2008-09-24T12:13:00.005+10:00

If you're looking for a good way to kill some time on a Friday afternoon, gather around your work mates and log on to:

www.bpexplorer.com.au

It might seem impossible at first, but perseverance will pay dividends of fun!

If you can manage this, you better run and hide for cover. Flipping a car apparently unleashes a fearful giant, capable of picking up your car and hurling it into the sun!

I kid you not! A giant soon appeared, towering above the mountain tops! He picked up the car which had tipped on its side and hurled it into oblivion. He threw it with such force that he tore a hole in the sky itself! The car was never seen again...

Flying Again!

2008-08-10T17:26:00.007+10:00

It's been a while since I last went flying. Here's some pics from my latest trip. I got bored and stopped taking photos after we passed Parramatta... I need to be more diligent in future trips.

The pilots, Keegan and Andrew. Getting the frost off the plane. Camden is a cold place in winter...

Beautiful clear sky. Letting the frost which covered the plane melt in the sun shine.

There were plenty of these old birds around, much nicer, shinier ones too!

The humble little Jabiru!

Interior is quite... minimal.

Me on the left, Andrew the pilot on the right

Keegan with his plane load in the Cherokee

Camden airport traffic control tower

Still out in the sticks, M7 is the arterial road

Sydney CBD off in the distance

Some golf course...

Approaching Parramatta

Parramatta CBD

GPS unit on the Jabiru

Nice view of the racecourse and Olympic park

Parramatta again

Jet Cat on it's way to Parramatta

That's all for this post. Can't wait to get up in the sky again soon!

The Original Air Guitar

2008-07-14T11:24:00.004+10:00

My friend Mark asked me to list an item on ebay. Here's the results ( He's the guy in photo, any ladies can email me for his number ;-) )

Item description reads:

This is the opportunity you have been waiting for.  Hand crafted in the summer of 1962 from the purest air on earth harvested from the Nepalese mountains in the Nikappookoopalunianowaa region, this Fendair Stratospherecaster is a stunning example of classic air guitar design and construction.   
Featuring:
-          Beautiful Brazilian Rose Air fingerboard
-          Fendair Pickups
-          Original 1962 finish, absolutely no scratches
-          Original frets
-          Five position switch 
-          Light weight construction
-          Right handed
 
Quite simply, this is the most beautiful guitar you will ever not see.    
 
Shipped via Registered Post in Australia $20.00
Payment methods
- PayPal
- Bank Deposit
- Money order
Happy Bidding.

Some of the questions I received:

Judging by your picture - you look like a wild character - is there any beer stains or marks i need to be aware of ?
Has the guitar been dropped? Can you throw in some new strings? (and my gf wants to know if the guy comes with the guitar?) Only cause i suck at playing!
what colour is the item?
hi. are you able to supply lefthanded guitars???
Can you tell me the weight of this item?
Is this a Reissue 1962 Fendair or an original. Hard to tell from the pic but it just looks like one of those knock off mass produced Chinese issues?
Been done to death of late; but, - it is undoubtedly the best specs/description in recent times. Well done. cheers, GS

I then received a message from ebay:

We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following auction-style listing(s):

280243519855 - The *Original* Air Guitar

However, your listing was in violation of eBay's No Item policy and has been removed from eBay. We notified members who placed bids on the item that the listing has been canceled. We would like to take this opportunity to let you know what part of your listing is not permitted.

Your listing(s) contains the following information:

Air Guitar

Listings not offering an item or service for sale are not permitted on eBay. Listings that do not offer an item clutter the site making it harder for buyers to find and sellers to sell items. Furthermore, these listings undermine trust in the eBay marketplace.

Listings where the buyer cannot verify the existence of the item upon receipt such as invisible or intangible items are not permitted.

So I guess that summises the experience!

News reading trends

2008-06-30T09:45:00.003+10:00

Thought I'd share my Google Reader trends with you all...

9-10am: Get to work, read some news
12pm: Get bored, read some news during lunch
3pm: Hungry again, read some more news with an afternoon coffee

Monday - Tuesday are spent catching up on the missed news from the weekend.
Wednesday - Friday must be quiet news days
Saturday - Read a feed or two with my breakfast...
Sunday - Hah! I have better things to do!

Another music post...

2008-06-24T12:26:00.003+10:00

Here's something I have been mucking around with the last few days...

Hunting at Goondiwindi

2008-06-16T20:13:00.008+10:00

Here's some snaps of a recent hunting trip I took to Goondiwindi, QLD.

Audio Test and Teaser

2008-06-06T10:59:00.003+10:00

Just playing around with ways to get mp3s up on my blog. Google doesn't seem to want to host audio files... but if you stick them in a movie they don't mind!

Hopefully in the near future more sweet audio samples will get added here. Maybe I can finally live up to the actual name of this blog and put some music related stuff on here!

Coffee Newb

2008-05-19T20:28:00.004+10:00

So, it's been like 5 months since my last post...

Better put something, ANYTHING up here to make some noise!

I've been dismally teaching myself how to make coffee. As the pictures will prove, I'm rubbish.

I now present to you all, my weird hybrid cappuccino-latte hybrids!!

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T13:23:00.000+11:00

Just wishing everyone a happy new year, hopefully your Christmas was a joyous one with plenty of food!

Also, this post is celebrating the first birthday of The Little Harmonic Labyrinth! Here's to 2008 and plenty more ranting/useless posts by me! I'll be as controversial as possible to get that hit meter spinning like crazy :)

iPhone :-O

2007-11-08T17:31:00.000+11:00

Let's get straight into the photos... comments at the end.

(I just realised how dirty it is... sorry! I cleaned it yesterday, I swear!)

Oh hello there.

Fits nicely.

Dimensions, compared to an iPod nano (1st gen)

The case and protective stuff really dulls it's shine :(

We hit the home button and we're at the screensaver.

An image most of us are very familiar with.

What's this, another screen full of icons? Unlocking is great!

Just a keypad for your phone. Contacts sync via my Address Book on my laptop.

My gmail syncing via IMAP. Works ok except it only grabs the latest 15 emails in each folder, so if you're offline it's tricky :-\

Safari in widescreen mode. A flick of the wrist and it's back in portrait mode :D

iPod Coverflow.

iPod artist list.

SMS and the onscreen keyboard.

Google Maps. You can do all the usual stuff like Satellite view and mapping routes.

iTunes store.

Settings window. Our carrier certainly isn't AT&T :P

This is Installer.app, amongst all the other apps we have lots of scripting languages supported :)

A little app to turn on/off various services. Edge can't be disabled from within normal settings! Yes, it has OpenSSH server installed too.

A terminal! That's ifconfig running.

Really funky game that takes advantage of the iPhone's accelerometers.

Interface:
Oh man! Unbelievably cool, Apple has absolutely owned the interface, it's practically flawless. Using it is a dream. Coming from a Windows Mobile phone, where 90% of the functionality required pin point accuracy, this is a huge improvement. Obviously it's been designed with fingers in mind, nothing you need to press is too small or hard to see. Spacing between icons is great, scrolling is just plain fun... watching the list snap back elastically (good old f = -kV :P) is addictive. Everyday I'm finding sweet little shortcuts, the left-right on a text message to delete it, double tap space bar for a ". " sequence etc.
The onscreen keyboard was bizarre at first, but after 2 or 3 SMSes I was literally touch typing with >70% accuracy. After almost a week, mistakes are far and few between if I'm holding it properly.
I can't get enough of the ability to switch between widescreen and portrait modes. Safari does it very nicely and renders web pages infinitely better than IE on Win Mobile 5! Facebook has never been so fun, hahaha.

Usability:
As a phone, it does exactly what you expect. I was a little chuffed by the fact I had to enter all my contacts manually and not having it read my SIM and simply copying them over, but I needed to start keeping a proper Address Book on my computer anyways.
Dimensions are acceptable, it's much thinner than I expected, little longer than I would have wished, but overall fine.
iPod functionality is fine, watching videos now makes proper sense on an iPod, IMHO the iPhone and iPod Touch are the first to hit the nail on the head. Dimensions are perfect for movie watching.
The camera isn't particularly awe inspiring, but does the job.
The bundled apps (Maps, Stocks, YouTube, Notes etc) are fine.
Battery is acceptable, heavy usage (WiFi, video, music on speakers) gives you about 2 days. I haven't had a chance to test it with "normal" usage yet!

Unlocking:
Fortunately I bought the thing unlocked, so I'm running 1.1.1 firmware. As the pics prove, I'm not using AT&T, although I still have the original SIM in case any future hacks require it or something goes hay-wire. I'm on a Vodafone prepay plan so unless I explicitly purchase Data/Net quota EDGE is no go for me. Frankly, I'm not going to bother until the prices come WAY down in Australia. I've lived without net on my phone for long enough, a little while longer isn't going to kill me. Having email on the road would be great thought :(

Hacking and 3rd party apps:
I'm yet to get custom Ringtones, I'm too tight to pay for iToner, too lazy to follow all the instructions to do it manually (plist hacking etc). Maybe one day :P
The Installer.app is a very nice addition to things! It scans a custom list of repositories and lets you install what you like, just like package managers on your favourite Linux distro.
The best addition is OpenSSH, scp'ing files over makes life much easier and doesn't mean I have to install some half-assed file browser app instead.
I have an MSN/AIM/ICQ client (why no gTalk??), Books app so I can read my Bible and some useless games.

Conclusion:
Very happy. I'm sure I will think of a thousand new cool things to add to this post over the next few days. I only envy those lucky, lucky people with unlimited data plans :( Can't wait for the iPhone version 2.0, I'm sure apple will blow us all away.

nike+ipod

2007-10-04T19:54:00.000+10:00

Picked up some nike+ shoes today, grabbed the iPod adaptor while I was at it :P
Gonna have some fun with these :)

That's where the iPod sensor/pedometer goes

See how small it is!

Then iTunes uploads the stats to the nike website for my perousal...

That's it for now I suppose!

MythTV Setup

2007-09-26T13:08:00.000+10:00

After a long hiatus, I'm back to blogging. I promptly present you all with my newly acquired MythTV based media center.

Sorry about the crooked image! Sure, you're all wondering what's inside eh. Right onto it:

As you can see, the case is an Antec NSK2480, which looks quite nice I must admit.
The cpu is an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350, that's the new 45W, 65nm, 2.1GHz chip. It was a little pricier, but the lower power requirements are ideal for this setup. Also in the mix is 1GB DDR2-667 RAM and a Western Digital 320GB (WD3200AAKS) hard drive!

The motherboard is an Asus MSNPV-VM and comes with a funky header containing all your favourite analog outputs (Component, S-Video, Composite), but also has DVI and VGA, powered by an nVidia GeForce 6150 video chipset. Since I'm running Linux, nVidia was clearly the way to go.

The TV Tuner is a DVICO Fusion-HDTV DVB-T Plus, it also has a low profile bracket, although the case I'm using supports full profile. For some reason not all cards have a loop-back coaxial plug, which is odd. But this card allows me to have it connected straight from the antenna before any other device. The remote is brilliant (but Lirc is less brilliant), and after some cursing under my breath it all works in Linux. Thanks to Chris Pascoe's work on this range of tuners my life was a fair bit simpler! Fortunately his work has been merged into the main branch of Lirc.

Here's a couple of more snaps of the internals. The case is great to work with, cable management was surprisingly easy.

I'd like to think it's fairly tangle free, considering I only used zip ties.

Yep, those are 120mm fans :O

Nice clean fascia. Note the lack of DVD... I didn't see the point to be honest!

I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 (Fiesty), which was fairly decent to work with. I just didn't have the time to install Gentoo, but I'm never really going to notice what's running underneath since it all just works (tm) now. Although I'm yet to work out how to shutdown the machine via just remote control...
Update: lirc mouse daemon is awesome! I assigned a button the remote to activate mouse mode, added /dev/lircm as a mouse to my xorg.conf, and assigned the numbers on my remote to correspond to directions, now I can control the cursor using my remote! Two big icons for myth frontend and shutdown are all the functionality I need. :)

Getting my tv and movie collection going was fairly straight-forward. Although it irks me that I have to rescan my video collection every time I want to see newly added tv shows. Apart from that, it's the mplayer that I know and love (and miss since it's not usable on OS X). The machine seems to play 720p content fine, although 1080i/p shows some distortion in fast motion scenes. This really isn't a huge issue because at the moment I'm running my TV as hard as I can via Component at 576i lol!

With regards to TV guides, there seems to be only one way to do it these days and that's through the shepherd grabber script.

That pretty much wraps up this post. Time to schedule some shows to get recorded!
Update: MythWeb is the web based interface to MythTV, navigating the program guide and scheduling shows is so much nicer with a mouse, browser and high resolution monitor.

Donnie Darko cameo appearance by...

2007-05-19T17:30:00.000+10:00

The Mach Microkernel!

This is the Director's Cut version, but I think it's in the regular version too.

Ticket collection

2007-05-10T12:59:00.000+10:00

Well, I've been procrastinating like crazy today, writing theses isn't half as fun as I imagined it to be when I signed up.

So I promptly introduce to you all, my ticket collection!

I will present the highlights in reverse chronological order, beginning with...

An unforgettable concert, his performance of Islamey and the encores were stunning.

It's a treat to hear Schumann's Symphonic Etudes as he intended them.

I was sceptical at first, but a great dinner and the experience of a forte piano changed my mind :)

I didn't think it was possible to be mentally scared by a movie :{

Incredible, his Scriabin Sonata was spotless, Rachmaninoff was jaw dropping, but Shostakovich stole the show.

Everyone knows his Beethoven is world class, but his Schubert was a dark horse.

I didn't laugh this hard again until Borat. (It's Tokyo Drift if you can't read it)

Most depressing train ticket I've ever purchased.

A cinematic masterpiece. 'Nuf said.

I counted a little over $300 for the tickets in this post... who knows how much more in the rest of that pile. Damn.

Redline... first impressions

2007-04-27T16:45:00.000+10:00

I just saw the trailer for the movie Redline and I haven't been this pumped since seeing the trailer for Tokyo Drift...

My greatest fear is the trailer is better than the actual movie, it's fast paced and has everything to pull you into the believable world of illegal super car racing. I've come up with a brief summary of the trailer:

car driving real fast
car flipping
hot girls dancing
car flipping
suit case of money
gear shift
car flipping over a hot girl dancing
police car flipping
black rapper cameo
hot girl driving a car real fast
gear shift
suit case of money flipping
guy diving while shooting a hand gun
a motorbike jumping over a train full of hot girls dancing

and so on and so on...

If you want to experience this hyperspeed thriller of a trailer, brace yourself and click HERE!

Wireless Sensor Motes

2007-03-08T23:05:00.000+11:00

Thought I'd have a quick update since I haven't posted for some time now. Today I got my hands on 2 wireless sensor "motes" as part of a Wireless Sensor and Mesh Networks class I'm taking at University this semester. These are considered mid-range devices and as you can see from the photos are almost identical in size to 2 AA batteries.

These models are known as "Tmote Sky"'s, made by Telos and apparently designed at the University of Berkeley. Manufacturer link can be found here. Here's a quick run down of the specs:

250kbps 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 Chipcon Wireless Transceiver
8MHz Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller (10k RAM, 48k Flash)
Integrated ADC, DAC, Supply Voltage Supervisor, and DMA Controller
Integrated onboard antenna with 50m range indoors / 125m range outdoors
Optional Integrated Humidity, Temperature, and Light sensors
Programming and data collection via USB
TinyOS support : mesh networking and communication implementation

I've began learning about TinyOS and nesC, I'm not entirely sure I'm fond of nesC as it seems like it has bastardised C. I'm not yet convinced that the way they have implemented the componentisation is the most elegant way. What I do know is that it has some incredibly cool documentation tools.

Apparently Mac OS X support has been abandoned, or maybe they just don't want to bother. Surely it's more of an effort to support Windows... oh well. I'll give it a go on Mac otherwise I'll have to try something interesting on my server machine and do development via SSH.

Speaking of which, I should really get around to posting some updates on my server setup. Although I'm hesitant to until I finish upgrading the storage system and add streaming digital TV (which might need an entire post of it's own!).

My first YouTube attempt

2007-02-18T20:13:00.000+11:00

Okay, so I was in the car and had my laptop with me. So I bust out iMovie and stick the laptop on the dash after hitting record.

I present to you the product (which ended up looking horrific after YouTube mangled it...):

That's all for now, hopefully more posts in the coming week!

It has arrived...

2007-02-15T19:28:00.001+11:00

Wednesday, 14th January, 8:35am. Two packages arrive. And there was much rejoicing.

Apple Protection Plan and iPod Nano
(the Nano ends up only costing me $20 due to a lovely student rebate)

They sure do go all out on their packaging...

Styrofoam never looked so good!

Lot's of useful little things.

A couple of glamour shots.

Well there you have it. The most beautiful laptop I've ever laid my hands on. It even arrived one day earlier than the shipping estimate.

So far my experience with migrating to OS X has been incredibly smooth. iTunes is 10x better than I remember it being. iLife '06 actually works and isn't so bad to use. The backlit keyboard is brilliant. The remote works a treat. I could go on...

I will hopefully finish migrating things over during the weekend and spend next building my new server and buying more accessories for the Macbook Pro. Expect more snaps next week when my table/room gets cleaned up for my new work environment! I can't wait.

MacBook Pro is Hot-To-Go

2007-02-06T23:00:00.001+11:00

Hooray! MacBook Pro has been ordered and shipment is expected by 15/02/2007 - 19/02/2007, which leaves plenty of time to set it all up before uni commences for the year.

For the curious, here's how I spec'ed it out:

2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
160GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
MacBook Pro 15-inch Widescreen Display (matte)
APP for MacBook Pro

More details to come when the order arrives!

Sydney: Birds Eye View

2007-01-19T19:24:00.000+11:00

As promised, photos from my plane trip around Sydney late last year (December 30). Which also means my phone/net is back up at home (woooh!).

Taking off at Bankstown Airport

My house can be seen in this photo (no I'm not going to point it out)

This looks like Parramatta...

This looks a lot like Sydney CBD...

The M4 motorway, yeah I got snap happy.

Yours truely. Razor? What's that?

Approaching Manly

Manly Beach (Pic 1) (Google Map Link, for confirmation)

Manly Beach (Pic 2)

View of the city from Manly

Finally landing

The ride was a little bumpy and it was a little cloudy. The pics are a little dark but I think they turned out ok considering it was a tiny 8MP camera and most shots were one handed :-P.

Also mad props to Emmet for fixing me up with an awesome new banner for my blog:

Google Talk excerpt:
(18:38:16) Emmet Rogan: i'm not that good @ photomanipulation
(18:38:28) Emmet Rogan: but i'll give it a shot

Yeah right, you rock! Thanks!

That's it for now! Hopefully I'll find an album or something to review so I can start a Music review section, but we'll so how I go.

Hottest 100

2007-01-19T12:14:00.000+11:00

Just thought I'd share my Triple J Hottest 100 shortlist. There's 20+ songs and I'll leave it a mystery as to which I chose as my final 10!

Custom Kings - Number 1
Damien Rice - Rootless Tree
Dresden Dolls - Back Stabber
Gomez - How We Operate
Hard-Fi - Cash Mashine
Kasabian - Empire
Kasabian - Shoot the Runner
Killers - Uncle Jonny
Little Barrie - Love You
Magic Numbers - Take A Chance
Matchbook Romance - Monsters
My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
Pony Up! - The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Is That They Die)
Rapture - Pieces Of The People We Love
Rapture - Whoo Alright Yeah Uh Huh
Razorlight - In The Morning
Sufjan Stevens - Dear Mr. Supercomputer
Saboteurs - Broken Boy Soldier
We Are Scientists - Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
Whitest Boy Alive - Burning
Young Knives - She's Attracted To
Youth Group - Forever Young

I tried to choose the songs which really caught my attention during the year. Ones which I found myself unknowingly humming and albums I kept relistening to cause I just couldn't get enough.
Don't forget to vote HERE. Less than 60 hours left as of this post.

Unfortunately I'm posting from work because something is wrong with my phoneline at home, which means no ADSL. Come on Optus, hurry up and fix it! As soon as it's fixed, expect photos from my (not so) recent air/plane trip around Sydney!

Movie Review: Apocalypto

2007-01-14T22:23:00.000+11:00

So I saw Mel Gibson's Apocalytpo tonight and thought I'd write down some of my thoughts...

Before I get to my comments about the movie, I'd like to comment on some of the reviews I read on Rotten Tomatoes, page in discussion can be found here.
Here's a few things I won't be mentioning (Rotten Tomato reviewers take heed!):

My thoughts on Mel Gibson's DUI incident and what I think should be done to him after the comments he made about Jews
How much I hate Mel because he made a movie about Jesus which upset so many people, many of whom write movie reviews and never shut up about it in other reviews

Now that we have that cleared up, let's begin!

Overall I was impressed with this movie, it really drew me into the setting and gave a decent impression of the events from the eyes of the main character, "Jaguar Paw". The scenery was stunning and the costumes/outfits/loin cloths (or lack of) seemed authentic. I have no intentions of reading Mayan history books and going "Hah! The style of the engravings on the knife were totally wrong! This movie has no credibility what-so-ever 0/10!", because I have better things to do and it still would have given the same viewer experience. I'm just worried a bunch of teenagers are going to go out and cut themselves with sharp knives in an effort to attain similar patterned scars over their chests/faces.
What I didn't appreciate was the hopeless attempts to make jokes in the first 10-15 minutes. Sure I just said that the authenticity of the engravings wasn't important, however I somehow doubt Mayan society also found Mother-in-Law jokes funny (c.f. Borat vs the joke/humour guy... but that's for another review).
What I did feel was some undertones commenting on societies, both ancient and modern. Throughout I kept thinking to myself how such an incredible civilisation could have fallen. It's also interesting to compare what was happening on the other side of the globe at the very same time, on one hand we have human sacrifices taking place and on the other, British people having tea parties.
What I should mention is the enormous amount of gore in this film, if fields covered in headless bodies makes you queezy, stay far away! The sacrifice scene is a little graphic, so don't look too closely at the above screen cap!
The second half of the movie is basically a relentless action flick. It's thoroughly predictable but the execution is great and seeing it done in a cool jungle environment is fun.

My conclusion, it's probably worth seeing on the big screen simply for the effects/experience. I don't think I'll bother ranking movies out of 5 or 10, simply because it means I'll have to devise some type of scale which is too much effort :P.

That wraps up my first blogged movie review. Hope I havn't annoyed anyone, and if I have leave a comment!

Summer vs Winter

2007-01-04T17:32:00.000+11:00

Occasionally (read: often) I get bored. Back in winter (June) I took a snap of the view from my bedroom window. For the heck of it I took another today. Here's the comparison!

Blogspot image upload rocks :-) Saves me hosting it elsewhere.

Extremery funny!

2007-01-03T20:40:00.000+11:00

Just run into a hilarious article which has been translated from Japanese into English. Well at least the content isn't hilarious, but rather the translation and spelling.

So I link you to the webpage in question: NINTENDO DS LITE X1.7 speed mod

Here's some of the awesome quotes in case the page goes down:

"Let's started.Before hand you maust release static electricity, by touching a big metal object."
"Open DS,guarantee lose!
WARNING: If you want to break DS,do it!"
"Finish!Extremery daricate handy work! Good luck"

Anywho, I've had my giggles for the night. Just a little plug for Hack A Day, lots of nifty things over there, not always very useful, but nifty ;-)

Welcome to 2007

2007-01-01T01:08:00.000+11:00

It's finally here!

Happy New Year everyone

This also means that actual blog content should start appearing soon! Stay tuned folks...

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T11:10:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all have a safe and fun holiday season.

Obligatory Introduction Post

2006-12-23T16:51:00.000+11:00

From past experience the first post on a blog usually falls into one or more of the following categories:

Promises to post regularly and with insight
Attempts by the author to convince themself that a blog isn't a stupid idea: "I never thought I'd... ", "I finally decided to..." etc.
testing...
Incomprehensible garbage, but then every other future post falls into this category

Let's just hope that in a few paragraphs time this post hasn't degenerated into any of the above.

It's the day before Christmas Eve and the first day of a two week holiday. A decent time to set things up before 2007 kicks in.

I guess it may be a good time to discuss my intended audience. I'm not keen on the idea of spam ming the url in my IM alias. To save the need to edit this post at a later date:

"Hello all blog readers of the future who have found their way here after typing the url after my MSN nickname into their browser and are now browsing old posts *waves* Yes nobody was visiting my blog so I solicited the blank space after my nickname as a form of advertising, please come back again :)".

I would like to keep this publicly accessable as it's always a treat to stumble across a random blog and be pleasantly surprised. Apart from that, anyone who's interests happen to coincide with my own (or vehemently oppose them).

That's it for now. Time to mess around with the templates more and conjure up some content to make this place worthwhile.