Posts

around the traps

silly quiz time

Brain function hasn't arrived yet, so I'll bumble through this for a bit.

  • What stickers do you have on your car? A Metropolis Records logo and a cut-down Brisbane Broncos logo (just the horsehead device, deep etched). Cliched? Maybe. I don't honestly give a shit. I love the Metropolis logo (not to mention the music) and I'm a long-time supporter of the Broncos.
  • How/where did you meet your last or current bf/gf? She ran up to me at uni and asked where I bought the tshirt I was wearing. She wasn't really expecting to end up marrying me ;)
  • What do you hear right now? Keyboard taps and mouse clicks, quiet voices from somewhere on the other side of this open-plan floor.
  • If you could have a drink of anything right this second, what would it be? Tempted to say a shot of aged irish on the rocks. I'd also love more coffee, but I would go nuts on the caffeine (I generally only have one - strong - coffee per day).
  • Does anything hurt on your body? I'm all-over tired but nothing specific hurts.
  • How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Graeme has that question covered.
  • What's your job position called? Web Standards Developer.
  • Size ring do you wear? Bastard slightly too small size. I have largish knuckles which makes ring sizing an utter utter shit of a problem. My engagement ring is currently living as a necklace instead of being on my finger.
  • Do you own a picture phone? I am guessing that means 'camera phone' or 'picture-capable phone'. No. I have a nice, simple phone which makes calls and sends texts; but not much else. I carry a digital camera.
  • What's your bf/gf's birthday? Not public. Think about it - most banks ask you your date of birth as some misguided "proof of identity".
  • What's your Mum's favorite band/musician? Whatever gets played on ABC's classical programs.
  • What's your Dad's favorite band/musician? Not sure what his favourite would be, although he likes Bozz Scaggs enough to have gone to the concert.
  • What was your high school's mascot? Didn't have one.
  • What's your favorite bottled water? Umm, not terribly fussy. Generally grab Mt Franklin or Pump but whatever's cheapest is usually ok. I do avoid some though, eg. Frantelle tastes odd to me.
  • What's the next concert/show you're going to and when? Tycho/VNV in September, maybe The Bravery but not sure I'll have the spare cash.
  • What's the next movie that you want to see? Meh, I never get around to seeing movies; pointless to nominate really.
  • What were you doing at 9 pm last night? Driving home from visiting a friend in hospital (pranged motorbike, broken leg) in what I would very grudgingly call my 'home town'. Place felt very small and a disturbing number of locations had a memory or association involving violence (here's where a friend got beaten unconscious with a fence paling, here's where some guy got beaten to death, here's where drunks fight outside the only nighclub, here's where a friend and i were attacked outside a party...). Fuck Ipswich and the one horse it rode in on.
  • What's your favorite Starbucks drink? Don't think I've ever so much as gone into a Starbucks, so I don't know.
  • Do you exercise as much as you should? Hell no. Geek! I am supposed to be walking my way to an iPod (reward/goal) but I'm not doing very well at all.
  • Did you attend your High School prom? We had a "formal", yes I went, overall it was pretty shit actually. Had some nice moments but in general it was just a hugely stressful, hugely over-rated event. Plus, my braces were removed three days afterwards despite the fact my orthodontist knew months in advance when they needed to come off. So the photos all have me with a tin grin. You can't really see them, but it has always pissed me off. Oh yeah, and that was also the one and only time I'll ever wear a cummerbund. Stupid fucking dumbarse piece of crap item of clothing, good for nothing, stick to waistcoats.

Update (2005.07.30): more silly quiz.

  • Do you have a crush on someone: No. Nine years + rings = I don't think this can be called a crush :)
  • What book are you reading now: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
  • Worst feeling in the world: Bad things happening and no way to stop them or help.
  • Future kids names: I have no plans for kids, just don't "get" them. That said, I like Niina and Taylor as girls names. No ideas on boys names.
  • Do you sleep with a stuffed animal: No.
  • What's under your bed: Clothes baskets (1 for clean, 1 for stuff in circulation eg. jumpers), toolbox, bokken, not quite sure what L has under her side.
  • Favorite sport to watch: Rugby League, although I also find International Rules utterly hilarious. I don't purposefully seek out motor sports; but I'll generally watch formula one when it comes on (or at least the start, generally they go far too late for me to watch through on a school night); I like watching WRC rallies, less usual circuit racing (eg. stuff with ferraris/lambos/etc going for broke) and drag racing if they are on when I stagger out of bed on the weekend. I'll watch the odd one-day cricket match and follow tests in summer (as in, tv is on in the other room and run in when the crowd roars :)). I guess I watch a lot more sport than I thought. I occasionally go to the football, very occasionally the cricket and it's been years since I actually went to Willowbank for the top fuellers.
  • Location: Brisbane.
  • Piercings/Tattoos: Nah. Would get a brow pierced if I wasn't put off by the chance of hitting nerves and destroying facial muscles (I know it's a calcualated risk, but I'm not motivated enough to take that risk). Would get a tattoo if I could stick with an idea long enough - usually after a couple of months I go off the idea completely and it's back to square one. Been toying with some ideas for quite a while now, they seem to be holding up so I may eventually actually do it.
  • Do you drink: Yes. Variety and quality far more than quantity. My problem in a bottle shop is indecision, kid-in-a-lolly-shop style.
  • What are you most scared of: Not sure. Wasting my life, perhaps.
  • Where do you want to get married: That's under discussion. Lots of ideas, no ideas, you get the picture. Not a church though, that'd be disrepectful since we're not Christians.
  • Who do you really hate: Very very few people get the hate tag. Some people frankly deserve it, some I just hated instantly for no reason - pure 'face i don't like' and it's always been mutual. Odd, but very easy to deal with - accept it, don't be around them. I actually see it partly as two people realising they are utterly incompatible, regardless of what the other person is actually like.
  • Do you have a job: Yes.
  • Do you like being around people: Yes, absolutely. Which is why it sucks that so many of my friends moved away.
  • Have you ever liked someone you had no chance with: All through highschool, I'd say ;)
  • Are you lonely right now: In a sense, yes. Those friends I do have here mostly don't have any connection with each other, plus I know a lot of people with friends with whom I have little common ground. So, I don't have a particularly coherent group of friends. They don't know each other to party together, for example; so I rarely get to have fun with 'a room full of friends'. I'm tempted to just organise something with absolutely everybody just to See What Happens.
  • Song that's stuck in your head: Kill All Hippies by Primal Scream.
  • Been in love: Yes.
  • Played strip poker: No. Never learned to play poker.
  • Gotten beaten up: In a minor way, yes. Pushed over, kicked a few times. I was very trashed so I was hardly a difficult target.
  • Pulled an all nighter: Yes.
  • Been on radio/tv: Yes, both, but only as a kid.
  • Been in a mosh-pit: Yes, back when they were actually mosh pits. Most fun: PWEI moshpit. Most intense: Rollins Band. Most "fuck this for a joke" moshpit: Prodigy at Big Day Out (just before Fat of the Land came out, whatever year that was). They no longer moshpits, they're just brawls and not fun any more.
  • Do you have any gay/lesbian friends: Yes. Forgot for a second that not everybody does.

photo: new toy

external hard drive

my new toy. 200gigs of external storage. 'metal gear box' enclosure, seagate barracuda hard drive.

the seagate doesn't seem 100% happy in the enclosure, it makes a slight buzzing noise when it's inactive. basically silent the rest of the time though. still not sure whether it bothers me enough to swap it for another brand and shift the 'cuda into the tower.

Also posted at lj:photographers.

Labels:

around the traps

humour meme

the Wit. 56% dark, 26% spontaneous, 11% vulgar. Your humor style: clean | complex | dark

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that 'the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

Place in humour 3 space, direct opposite Idiot Savant

The test tracked 3 variables: How you compared to other people your age and gender:

  • You scored higher than 52% on dark
  • You scored higher than 29% on spontaneous
  • You scored higher than 0% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

As an aside, I think okcupid just displayed the first truly honest 'dating service' banner I've ever seen. "Meet a fuck buddy in your town!" it proclaims. The romance never ends ;)

Labels:

around the traps

around the traps

news bits

  • PM's new breed of workers | WORKPLACE WARRIORS | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (12-07-2005): JOHN Howard has identified a new class of "enterprise workers" willing to put Australia's long-term economic needs before their own, and foreshadowed even more workplace reforms. ... Mr Howard's belief that he can bring many workers with him in his Government's industrial relations reforms is the strongest indication yet that he has no intention of making concessions or retreating in the face of opinion polls showing 60 per cent of voters reject his plans. How out of touch do you need to be to think people will put their own needs second to the company? Maybe if you're the CEO with a million dollar salary it might be worthwhile, but don't even try to convince the person on the front desk making $30k that they should put the company first.
  • Cabinet to consider Afghanistan redeployment. 12/07/2005. ABC News Online: Federal Cabinet and the National Security Committee will today discuss how many Australian troops will be sent back to Afghanistan. Apparently people have realised they never finished what they started in Afghanistan.
  • Indigenous health still a major problem: report. 12/07/2005. ABC News Online: A report on disadvantage in Indigenous communities in Australia has found there have been improvements in some areas since 1994, but there are still big problem areas, especially when it comes to health.
  • Interesting wording switch here... Blair vows to defeat terrorists as bomb toll rises. 12/07/2005. ABC News Online: Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed Britain would not be defeated by terrorists as he fended off calls for an inquiry into whether intelligence services could have averted bombings that killed at least 52 people. In the headline, Blair is talking about defeating the terrorists; which implies retaliation and beating the terrorists into submission. Actually Blair talks about not being defeated which is something entirely different. Having the resolve to continue on does not imply any form of escalation or retaliation. The key point is that does not give the terrorists any excuse to attack again - not that they have an excuse in the first place, but taking America's course of action pushes the situation to the brink of open war. It's a small wording trick, but it's important to note the difference. You'd expect it from news.com.au but it's disappointing to see this come from the Abie.
  • Four gored in bull running | Europe | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (11-07-2005): FOUR people, including an on-duty policeman, were gored by bulls on the fifth day of the bull-running festival in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona on Monday. Interesting how often people get gored when the bulls have a fighting chance. In the bullring, they ensure the bull is weakened to stack the odds.

it's time to go.... mental health. you have thirty seconds to leave the house.

BB bad for the brain | Big Brother | Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au (11-07-2005): Psychologists testing viewers who tuned in to the British show for just six hours found alarming side effects in their mental health, including increased levels of anxiety, depression and hostility.

I get that from discovering that the show I do want to watch has been pushed back half an hour by BB in an unscheduled timeslot extension. Apparently an hour and a half wasn't enough time to talk to the latest fuckwit ejected from the house.

around the traps

a bit of a catchup, some of these aren't as fresh as they were when picked; but they're still good.

that stiff upper lip

Steve's random and often beligerent Journal - Quotes of the day | Okay, this seems to be the official LONDON BOMBING quote post... I think my favourites so far are the icon saying "We've been bombed by a better class of bastard than you." and the quote I'd like to congratulate today's terrorists for achieving nothing but instilling a fierce patriotism back into the British Isles, creating a rather wide-spread rash of Blitz Spirit, and giving me a day off work. I'm a bit pissed off that you nearly blew up some of my friends, but at the end of the day - you failed. We're still here, we're not scared of you.

That.. and I admire the people who took it all into account and went to the pub.

random observations from recent weeks

  • milo bars are seriously addictive. on a related note, i've become so used to fund raiser chocolate in the office that i was slightly miffed the other day when i wanted a freddo and there were none to be had.
  • at some point i stopped expecting anything better than aggressively bad service from every retailer i deal with. not just the absence of good service... actively bad service.
  • i hate these filthy humans. except you of course.
  • my new dvd burner rocks. so does my new external hard drive enclosure (it really is *shiny*!), with shmick seagate 200gig drive.
  • i feel old. the whole dvd format thing shits me... i find myself grumbling that i just want to burn round, flat dvds.
  • no matter how long they are, IDE cables need to be about 5cm longer. and there needs to be more distance between the first and second plugs. actually i need* $300 for a new Antec quiet case and psu.
  • against all laws of nature, physics and EVERYTHING DECENT... microsoft's support site sucks AND blows.
  • bunnings didn't have the one barbeque that we wanted. damn them to hell. although we did finally pick up little stick on hooks so i can finally put my wire artwork gecko up in the bathroom.
  • i need* $2000 to blow on a Canon 350D. make that $3000 so i can get a new compact digital as well - probably another sony, but with a Zeiss lense. hell, $4000 so i can get a Manfrotto tripod with all the attachments.
  • my isp seems a bit flaky at the moment. anonymizer can see Funny Shit, the 200ok weblog and so on... and i can get my email most of the time, but i can't browse to any of it. can't get to rocksluts either.
  • the deluxe edition of DJ Shadow's "Endtroducing" is awesome. i didn't think it was possible for me to love this album more than i already did.
  • apparently winter is over. damnit.
  • friends got married. great night. it was awesome to have so many of the old college crew back together, too. i have a great photo of them all in mid-shot....
  • a taxi nearly ran into me tonight, so i honked to avoid an accident. the arsehole had the nerve to honk me as he passed me a few seconds later. fuck taxis. fuck buses too, while we're at it. don't complain that it's your living, you brought it on yourselves by driving like jerks all the time.
  • i'm tired. sleep now.

* I'll abuse the word "need" however i see fit ;)

blair vs. dubya

Full text of Tony Blair's statement on the London blasts. 08/07/2005. ABC News Online. Tony Blair sums up his attitude towards terrorists: It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa and the long term problems of climate change and the environment ... It is important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire impose extremism on the world. Although Blair didn't say it, many have observed that you cannot terrorise a nation which has already withstood decades of attacks; as well as surviving the Blitz in WWII.

It's interesting to compare this statement with Dubya's response to September 11, 2001; where he essentially came out and crowed "yeehaw, I'm formin' a posse and we's gonna kill us some towelheads". Blair has a brain and knows how to be a leader. Dubya.... is a moron.

london bomb attacks

No doubt you'll all have heard by now: BBC NEWS | In Depth | london explosions. I've now heard that all the people I know in London are safe; I wish the same for everyone despite knowing it can't be true for everyone.

I don't know what to make of the world tonight. I certainly have no love for religion and the fundamentalists it produces. I feel tired and angry that terrorists continue these attacks. I wonder what was supposed to be achieved but in a sense I don't care - I don't believe terrorism achieves anything.

I feel sad that the world can create the conditions to inspire terrorism, sad that anyone could become so marginalised that they lash out in such a way. I see terrorists like school bullies with a bad home life - I can guess at motivation but I do not excuse any of the behaviour.

I suppose all we can really do is resolve to live our lives without changing in response to terrorism. Our plans for a trip to the UK - to see friends in London - are not changed. Not for a second. Not much in the greater scheme of things, but it's the only thing within my sphere of influence.

Update: Reagan - 07/07/05, unsurprisingly says it far better than I ever could.

queenslander!

[What... do you only cheer your team when they're winning?]

ABC Sport - Rugby League - Relentless NSW wrap up Origin series. Well that sucked... but hey, there's always next year :)

I've seen results like that in club matches where the strengths of one team exactly target the weaknesses of the other. A bit more weight in the Queensland pack might have helped, we really missed the big guys like Shane Webcke, Carl Webb, Steve Price... players like Brent Tate and Neville Costigan might have made a difference as well.

Finalising your team with only a couple of days to go was insanity, they should have just named Tonie TBA Carroll and let everyone get on with the job. As it was, they made Carroll play through a club match and back up for Origin - not a smart move if you want to go in full strength.

Of course, it wouldn't be a post-origin wrapup if I didn't observe that the referee put in another shite performance. It wouldn't have changed the result, but Simkins has proved he'll buy any lame duck routine that Blues players want to put on. He bought Johns' ouch-my-knee, he bought Ben Kennedy's pratfall (fair enough that Crocker still should have left him on the ground on the off-chance he wasn't milking the penalty), he bought it when Menzies fell over cold to milk a penalty in the play-the-ball. Funny how they try on every trick when they've got Ricky Stuart coaching them.

So anyway... next time Gould does a piece to camera suggesting that NSW ever faced a pro-Queensland referee, someone punch his lights out!

One consolation was this: Full-back Anthony Minichiello ... won the Wally Lewis medal for player of the series. I thought they'd give it to Andrew Johns (as it is, the sports media are going to be insufferable for another year, crapping on about dear old Joey). About five minutes before the presentation I commented that Minichiello deserved the award but the league would be too busy blowing sunshine up Johns' arse to notice. Queensland supporter or not, I think Minichiello was deserving recipient.

neil gaiman @ pulp fiction

Pulp Fiction is hosting "an evening with Neil" in a couple of weeks. Based on past events I would expect wine, nibblies, Neil will probably speak and/or read from his latest publication and then he'll do a signing.

Thursday 21st July, 6:30pm for 7:00pm; in the Atrium, Anzaz Square Arcade (that means in the big arcade outside Pulp Fiction).

Tickets are $15, book through Pulp Fiction - phone 3236 2750.

around the traps