Posts

suckage, and set top boxes

Today sucked.

...I'm sure I should be able to come up with more than that. Well actually I shouldn't really dig into specifics here (public blog and all) so there's not a lot more to be said anyway.

So tonight has been comedy on TV (yay Spicks and Specks and The Chaser!), pizza from Portofino and the last of the bottle of Chivas Regal from when I left Griffith. How that lasted six months I do not know ;) Come to think of it, I think there might still be some of the other bottle of scotch from when I left Griffith, too. Better see to that...

Watching TV has become a lot more enjoyable lately since I finally cracked and bought a cheap set top box. The TV reception here is absolute crap, but the digital signal is pretty much fine (other than channel ten anyway).

It's just a pity you can't tape and watch digital TV at the same time... so House was taping (fair use, huzzah!) and all the ABC content was fuzzy crap. That aside, the set top box has been an excellent investment. Crystal clear SBS! Awesome. Channel 10 sucks though, we regularly have to revert to normal signal.

What's thought provoking about that is what will happen when there's no analogue signal any more? When digital goes to crap it's unwatchable - there's no 'we'll just put up with the slight ghosting/haze'... bad digital means you change the channel. From what people have been telling me, different suburbs have problems with different channels.

I'm glad it's Channel 10 that's crap here - give me ABC and SBS! Top Gear, Mythbusters, Iron Chef, Rockwiz, Spicks and Specks, The Chaser... all the best stuff eh. Sure, Ch10 has some cool stuff too but it also has metric fuckloads of utter shite. I could live without Ch10.

But the fact of the matter is digital is fantastic when it works... and it craps out a lot more than analogue (how often do channels simply disappear? not that often..). No wonder digital uptake is incredibly low.

Still, even with the problems I do recommend getting a set top box.

Herendeth the ramble. I'm off for some retro gaming deathmatch (return to castle wolfenstein - friendly to ageing video cards :)).

around the traps

crazy feed shit

New theory on the weird shit going on with this page's feed: I think Blogger is actually 'resending' posts if I add or change a label (Blogger's version of tags).

That's pretty dumb behaviour of course, but not something I can control. Again, my apologies for the friends list flooding.

Time to submit some bug reports...

Update: this is definitely the problem. Bug report submitted. Blogger will get right onto ignoring it, I'm sure.

Labels:

around the traps

happenings

Well now, it has been a busy few days.

  • Webjam on Thursday night. Very fun, not least due to the Melbourne contingent. I stuck to the true male way of expression affection, by yelling "dodgy fuckers!" on sight ;)
  • Greatly enjoyed the unveiling of timwouldlickit.com.
  • Tried to console a lovesick Brothercake, limited success as you might expect with such things.
  • Discussed issues of the day, with great gusto and great company.
  • Can't remember how many scotches I had (open bar thanks Microsoft, whee!), but can remember everything that happened. Which is about the right balance really :) Suspect switching to scotch instead of beer was a good move, I get mashed much faster on beer.
  • Went when the night's crossroads were reached - first venue closed; from there I could walk home or cab a significant distance in the wrong direction for pizza I didn't need (having stuffed myself with noodles en route to Webjam). Surprising show of restraint really.
  • Got stuck on Pyrmont Bridge for quite some time as about 15-20 yachts came through for a boat show. Never seen them open it up completely before, monorail span and all...
  • Lots of very very rough looking people at work on Friday ;)
  • Friday night mission didn't eventuate, had a relatively quiet one.
  • Up early Saturday morning - by my standards - and off to Barcamp for 9am start.
  • Lots of people shuffling their feet and not wanting to go first, so I dived in and kicked off a first session topic, "to hack code, first hack people". Well attended and went for over half an hour which is long by barcamp standards! Great discussion.
  • Saw Chaals in person for the first time since OZeWAI 2004, which was great.
  • Loaded up with Opera shwag, also great for this little Opera fanboy ;) I now have a tshirt with Opera-logo ninja! (best freebie shirt ever!) ...and a sticker that reads "Opera - so fast you'll crap in your pants" and many other items including badger^H^H^Hbadges.
  • Found myself volunteered to run a session on microformats. People around me were saying 'yeah we really need a session on microformats, someone should totally do that!' and I looked up to find three people literally pointing at me! :) I was more than a little surprised, but hey why not so the topic went up on the board. In the end it was the last session of the day and beer o'clock was calling, but spirited discussion ensued. Hurrah!
  • Long walk to pub ate up time so I bid farewell to barcampers, to go check out some very different camp.
  • Leah and I went and saw the mardi gras parade. Lots of fun, even though we were only on street level and couldn't see a hell of a lot. I am left wondering if there are support groups for gay people who don't like Kylie Minogue though ;) Hell of a party atmosphere, I can really see why it turns into such a massive party.
  • We however were well and truly out of energy by this stage, so we hopped a monorail over the crowds and grabbed gelati at Darling Harbour on the way home. Watched people drifting about in some very expensive boats.
  • Pondered Sydney's drinking laws - it's legal for people to drink in the street. The result is ...well, tacky. It's not sophisticated to have streets full of people staggering about clutching six packs and goon bags. Besides which, what's the attraction? Why not just drink at your mate's place? I also think it's half the reason the streets are so grubby (combined with stupid lack of bins). Bottles and shit everywhere all the time! Anyway...
  • Sunday. Umm, well I slept most of it. I thought I hadn't slept that much but it seems I was out for at least 12 hours. Guess I needed it. Only ventured out to get in some supplies for a very tasty dinner.
  • Monday was very long, stressful and crap. Glad that one's over.

So that's about where I'm up to. Jealous of all the people about to fly out to SXSW, but also inspired to try to get my arse over there (or to Web Directions North) at some point in future.

Labels: , ,