Thursday 20 December 2007

Christmas Time Again

I still can't get used to Christmas in the Southern hemishphere.  Plastic Christmas trees all around the city are wilting from the heat, fake snow sprayed on the windows is used to give a good block from the sun, and seeing santa at Bondi beach this morning with board shorts on was hilarious.

So this year Ingunn and I are escaping it all again, and driving up north to Byron Bay for a weeks break.  We're staying in an apartment that is literally spitting distance from the main beach itself and only a few minutes walk fromo the heart of Byron.   Byron Bay is one of my favourite spots in NSW and i reckon this break will be an excellent opportunity to do nothing, surfing, reading, eating, drinking.


Although I'm planning on doing quite alot of surfing in Byron i'm quite wary of all the white pointers that have been spotted in the area.  This one was spotted by a fisherman in Newcastle, and there were some surferes/kayakers stalked by one in Byron recently. I'd love to see one in the wild though.

 




Christmas Time Again

I still can't get used to Christmas in the Southern hemishphere.  Plastic Christmas trees all around the city are wilting from the heat, fake snow sprayed on the windows is used to give a good block from the sun, and seeing santa at Bondi beach this morning with board shorts on was hilarious.

So this year Ingunn and I are escaping it all again, and driving up north to Byron Bay for a weeks break.  We're staying in an apartment that is literally spitting distance from the main beach itself and only a few minutes walk fromo the heart of Byron.   Byron Bay is one of my favourite spots in NSW and i reckon this break will be an excellent opportunity to do nothing, surfing, reading, eating, drinking.


Although I'm planning on doing quite alot of surfing in Byron i'm quite wary of all the white pointers that have been spotted in the area.  This one was spotted by a fisherman in Newcastle, and there were some surferes/kayakers stalked by one in Byron recently. I'd love to see one in the wild though.

 




Sunday 4 November 2007

Marley Beach

A great find, in the Royal National Park South of Sydney.   It's a bout a 45 min drive to the national park itself, then a good hour walk to the beach.  Due to the isolation there was almost noone else there.  Marley beach itself has crystal clear water, but a huge surf which makes swimming almost impossible.   Little Marley beach just round the corner though is a great spot for a dip, and having a beach to yourself and being so close to the city is quite unique. 

 

Marley Beach 031 

 

Marley Beach Panoramic

Marley Beach

A great find, in the Royal National Park South of Sydney.   It's a bout a 45 min drive to the national park itself, then a good hour walk to the beach.  Due to the isolation there was almost noone else there.  Marley beach itself has crystal clear water, but a huge surf which makes swimming almost impossible.   Little Marley beach just round the corner though is a great spot for a dip, and having a beach to yourself and being so close to the city is quite unique. 

 

Marley Beach 031 

 

Marley Beach Panoramic

Thursday 25 October 2007

Fact

  • It is physically impossible to lick your elbow
  • A shrimp's heart is in it's head
  • On average women blink nearly twice as much as men
  • The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest
    tongue twister in the English language

Wednesday 24 October 2007

Surfs Up

ronin64f

Decided that Iam ready for a smaller surfboard, so have traded in the old one.   It (the old) was 7' 6'', and abit cumbersome.  Was great for learning on, once on a wave you could stay up on it, but awkward to maneuver in the water, and getting to and from the beach.  Paddling out through the breaks was very difficult too due to the shape and inability to dive under waves.  So I got a smaller 6'6'' board.

The pointed nose and smaller surface area means getting out through the breaking waves is much easier now, however, it is has far less balance.  You have to be going quite fast for the board to become at all stable, but can turn alot more.   So far it has been quite challenging on the new board, it has been like learning to surf all over again infact, but think I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Perseverance is definitely needed with surfing.

For inspiration i'm reading "High Surf" by Tim Collins.

"Leading surf journalist Tim Baker has profiled the surfing world's most inspiring characters, encountered over two decades of surf writing, to highlight the life lessons and boundless inspiration to be gained from a lifestyle built around waveriding. From salty old surf legends to modern pro–surf stars, to surfers from all walks of life –– writers, musicians, aid workers, ethicists –– the common theme in all these surfers' lives is how their personal journeys have been shaped and informed by their experiences in the ocean."

It started off a bit "surfing is all about finding waves of energy in ocean and earth" hippy crap, but after awhile becomes an excellent collection of short stories from some the greatest surf legends, and a good history lesson in it (surfing).

highsurf

What else have been up to?  Not much.  Ingunn and I are spending a week in Byron Bay over Christmas.   Still trying to decide on the wedding,  very difficult to do anything from here.

Sunday 14 October 2007

South West Rocks & Hawkesbury

Cave diving in shark infested water,  a great 3 days .

shark_med

See more pictures here

A relaxing weekend at the Hawkesbury.  I caught 1 fish, Ingunn got 3.  How come this always happens?

 fush_med

Looking forward to England's match against South Africa in the Rugby World Cup next weekend.  Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

Sunday 23 September 2007

Sydney Marathon 2007

Despite being unsure about this years marathon, things went alot better than i was expecting.  The race started off pretty cold in the morning, but as soon as the clouds shifted it quickly became blisteringly hot.  I felt good running the first half of the race, no problems with the legs/feet and full of energy, but after about 30km really started to tire and began wishing i'd worn a cap to block out the sun, especially as there few trees around for shade.   The last 10 km were absolute agony, reminiscent of the horrors of my first marathon, but i managed keep going without stopping (apart from drinking at the aid stations) as I just wanted to get it over and done with.  My finishing time was 3 hours 26 minutes 32 seconds, which I'm quite proud of, and surprised of really.  I was aiming for just under 4 hours at the beginning, but decided to go at a pace that i felt ok with.   The first half i ran in 01:38:23, which was why i think i tired so much in the second which was run in a slower 01:48:09.

The winner of the Sydney marathon ran it in 2 hours 14 minutes which is an astonishingly fast time, he must have bionic legs.  (here are the full 2007 race results)

If i run the marathon again, I think i'll find it hard beating that time, it really took everything out of me;  who knows, i'll re-asses it in 6 months time. For now though I'm in agony,   walking is just so painful, my front thigh muscles feel like they have been torn out and stretched on a rack for a day or two, but it was worth it! 

Looking forward to a summer of surfing now. 

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Yarrrgghh

it's talk like pirate day today.

So bring me a noggin of rum, now, won't you, matey?

Monday 17 September 2007

Last Sunday

Fishing down at Vacluse

Naturally, I didn't catch anything. 

Been doing more surfing which i'm realoly enjoying, booking a christmas holiday in Byron Bay, reading Will Self books, avoiding facebook, and being pretty busy at work.  Off to South West Rocks with Gav and Chris next long weekend for a scuba diving trip with sharks and potentially whales (not just Chris). 

Running the Sydney Marathon this sunday which i'm not particularly looking forward too.

Monday 3 September 2007

APEC

This week Sydney is hosting the APEC summit. I'm not actually sure what the summit is about, but as 21 world leaders are going to be in the city at one time, the police army, navy seem to be involved in some enormous security operation.  There are 8ft high seclusion barriers all around the CBD, lots of men in black suits wandering around Martin Place, and over the last week or two, black hawk helicopters have been buzzing around the cbd practising for goodness knows what.  Seems like totally unnecessary overkill to me, i'm just wondering why they forgot to dig trenches and put barbed wire on the top of the fences.

Friday is the day the George Bush actually arrives, so Sydney has been given another public holiday.  Can't complain about that i guess.

Friendly 8ft barriers

Our wedding plans are progressing, a time and place has been set: 28th June next year in Drammen Norway.  Here infact, at the Spirallen.  Seems a long way off, and anyone would think we are organised.  Ha!

Sunday 26 August 2007

Green waves

So another weekend spent in the sun and surf, and i reckon it's all starting to fall into place now.  I managed to catch a few of the 'green waves'  and ride them wave all the way to the beach.  I found by shuffling towards the front of the board you can keep going for longer on a wave, i guess if the board is losing momentum, tilting the nose abit forces it down the wave more.  Next thing is learning how to turn properly.  Ache all over today though, i nose dived a couple of times and had some big waves crasg on top of me.

Finally feels like summer is just around the corner now, it is the best time of year in Sydney. 

Wednesday 15 August 2007

Wednesday 8 August 2007

New Gadget

My Garmin Forerunner 305 finally arrived today, all the way over from the USA.  It's basically a high sensitivity GPS receiver & virtual trainer on the watch and wireless heart rate monitor all in one.

cf-lg

I've just given it a test run around centenial park tonight, and have been able to upload all the GPS tracking info, pace, altitude, heart beat  and awhole ton of other  metrics to my laptop.  Using the proprietary Garmin software, i can then sift through all these measurements in relation to a map.. pretty amazing really.  In this case, i ran 11.30km at an average pace of 13km/hr with a average heart beat of 165bpm.  I can see exactly at what points around the park i ran the fastest/slowest, and when i was about to have a heart attack etc.  The cool thing is that next time i run that route, i can run against the virtual me; the watch will tell me how far infront/behind iam of myself in realtime.  

 

garmin

The best part of it all though, aside the Garmin software, is that you can import this all this GPS data directly into Google Earth (see below).  Your route is plotted to pinpoint accuracy,  every little triangle represents when the device recorded a  GPS signal. If you click on one of those triangles, you get presented with the longitude, latitude, altitude, heart rate, speed and direction you were heading.  So, even if you aren't runng/cycling, you could forexample take this out on a walk/car journey then upload the data into google earth to check out your route.

 

gearth2 gearth

This is a very smart gadget, you barely notice it when running and i just love having a GPS device/map on my wrist that is synched with a heart monitor.  The only gripe i have is that it takes ~30 seconds to lock onto satellites. 

Then again, perhaps this is too much technology; perhaps i should just keep it real and run up snow covered mountains in Russia with bricks in my backpack like Rockie Balboa did? ..

Monday 6 August 2007

Easy

To get something clean, one has to get something dirty. To get something dirty, one does not have to get anything clean.

Last weekend

So I went surfing at Bondi Beach on Saturday and Sunday again.  Both days the conditions were ideal for learning..  fairly calm with 3-4ft waves rolling in, along with blues skies Cool

Some of the other more experienced surfers were out too, amazing to watch and you learn so much from just talking to and observing others.  Physically though I think you need powerful shoulders to be able to get the initial speed on your board, strong arms/abdominal muscles to be able to quickly get up on the board, and ofcourse balance/finesse to be able to avoid falling off straight away.  I fail on all 3 counts, but am thinking of doing some swimming to build up the arms/shoulders.  Not so much a problem this weekend, but one of the hardest aspects i'm finding is actually swimming out through the breakzone;   anything bigger than 4 ft and i'm knocked off my board and washed up on the shore.  I end up using about half of my energy just getting out to the waves.  

This article offers 3 techniques for paddling through waves: Pushing Up. Busting Through, and the Eskimo Roll.  I've tried all three and usually just try busting through, but i don't think i'm able to get the board fast enough and so end up gettting carries backwards eachtime, particularly when doing the eskimo roll.  I think i need to get a smaller, lighter board so that duck-diving is an option. Here's a good thread on duck-diving for anyone interested

 

Iam still blown away by how good is.  it is simply the most efficent way to trawl through unread news items. As you read items it scrolls them down one at a time and marks them unread (all using the space bar). And, it is all very well done with AJAX.  As I continue using Google Reader I've been looking through my reading behaviors and stats and have learnt alot about my reading habits.  If anyone hasn't tried this yet, i highly recommend it.

Currently reading Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, listening to Hed Kandi BeachHouse 2007, and watching Mantracker on Nat Geo Adventure channel.  

Sunday 5 August 2007

Is it just me

.. or is it getting warmer these days?  I wish there were more in the press to highlight the fact. 

Sunday 29 July 2007

Fig Tree

I love this grand old Fig tree in the Botanical Gardens down here in Sydney,  often come down in my lunch break and have a snooze under it.  I wonder how old it is?  Judging by the width i'd say several hundred years.  According to this page it is a Moreton Bay fig tree (Ficus MacroPhylla ofcourse), and here is some more information from the fountain of knowledge

 

Urban Jungle 015 (Large)

 

More surfing planned at Bondi this weekend. I've found this great surfcam overlooking Bondi beach, and find myself staring at it allday long wishing i was there.

Monday 23 July 2007

Lets go surfing now

 Been out surfing twice this weekend in Bondi and i'm in agony.  There was a 3 meter swell today and it was like being in a washing machine at times.  I've bought my first board, a second hand 7ft 6 inch SunRide epoxy, and 3.2mm Billabong wetsuit.

Friday 20 July 2007

"Looks like we may have overdone it with the sherry there mate"

The first time i saw this advert i was in hysterics, and still am everytime i watch it, especially now having spent 5 years in Australia. 

Auusies wouldn't give a Castlemaine XXXX for anything else!

Sunday 15 July 2007

Wipedout

Dude, i like went over the falls and totally pearled today.

After 2 1/2 hours of fighting a massive Bondi surf, being thrashed by rhino waves, and inhaling half of the sea I managed to ride about 7-8 of the big ones and loved every second of it.  By the end of it i was suffering from Peralitis* though.

It's a great sensation just gliding down a wave.  I know I'm going to ache so much tomorrow, but am definitely looking forward to next Saturday's session.

Currently reading  Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, a bizarre postcyberpunk novel; watching "The Great Global Warming Swindle", a group of very prominent scientists explain if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and there's nothing you can do about it - very compelling; watching National Geographic Adventure Channel, and eating at the rather excellent "Eat Thai the republic" restaurant down Darlinghurst rd (this is a a big call, but I think it as good as if not better than the legendary Thai Thai Poh).

Anyway, I'm kished, goodnight. 

 

* Pearlitis :

The propensity to drop into a wave and have the nose of the surfboard bury under water thus causing the rider to be pitched out from the face of the breaking wave. Generally resulting in the surfer being worked or rag dolled.

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Thursday 12 July 2007

Australian Citizenship

After nearly 5 short years I'm a few weeks away from finally being able to apply for this. On the way back from London a few weeks ago I was looking at my passport, and it had something like 9 different Australian visas plastered inside it; 417, 457's and permanent residencies. I'd forgotten about half of them.

It's the same ordeal for every ex-pat living down here, never ending hassles with the Immigration department. On television, the Australian Government advertise how easy it is to become one of them now, but in reality you need atleast 4 years of living in the country and setting yourself up is far from easy. Still, it has definitely been worth it, and I reckon the passport will be quite a milestone for me.

Over the jet lag now, and back into the swing of things now. It hasn't stopped pissing down with rain for the last week, so Sydney makes even London look like a bright cheerful city at the moment. On Friday I just signed up for the marathon again this year. It's in mid-September again and I'm already beginning to have doubts.  Doing the marathon itself is great, you get a huge buzz from everone cheering you on and ultimately crossing the finishing line, it's just the 2 months training leading up to it that gets abit tiresome.. running 4 times a week.

Survival theme this week; i've been watching the 2nd series of Man vs Wild, Bear Grylls has been in the Everglades, Iceland and Mountains of Mexico�and Outback in Australia so far.  I'd recommend this tv programme to anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I've also been reading Miracle in the Andes- 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, the story of a plane crash involving a Uraguyan rugby team, cannibalism and a amazing story of survival an endurance.  I think the movie Alive was based off this.

Going surfing this weekend.

Wednesday 4 July 2007

Murrays Law

Any country with "democratic" in the title, isn't.

Sunday 1 July 2007

Jet Lag

 

I think travelling West to East seems to intensify your jet lag for some reason, perhaps because is more disruptive, or runs counter to the body's circadian rhythm.  Either way having just travelled for 36 hours non-stop from Norway to Sydney on Friday I'm just completely exhausted mentally and physically.  Was great fun, and we really didn't want to come back this time. You really get the feeling that London in the summer is really one of the worlds best cities, so much going on, and I loved seeing new spins on old haunts.  Oslo/Drammen in Norway has so much natural beauty and a really good vibe to the place.

I've uploaded my photos from the 3 week trip here, and when I'm in a bit better shape write some comments on each one.

Cheers! 

A cold beer at the Anchor Pub

Monday 4 June 2007

Facebook

Why is it so popular? 

Here are some (staggering) facts :

  • Facebook has 24 million active users (who have used the site in the last 30 days) and of them, 50% of them login each day. Apparently the next most active social network,  is not more than 15%.
  • A recent survey has found that 50% of college age females said Facebook was their #1 most important web site (even more than Google, Wikipedia, or anything else) and that 1/3 of college age males said it was their #1.
  • Look how many “addicts” Facebook has, according to Quantcast. 63% of visits are from addicts. eBay is only 56%.
  • Facebook is adding 100,000 new users per day; that’s ~3% growth per month. And the fastest growing segment is over age 25, so at this rate, they’ll have 50 million users by the end of this year, and 75% of them will be out of college. I read just on paidcontent.org that Facebook is the fastest growing social network in the UK, and already 10% of Canada’s population is using it.

With 40 billion pages view per month, Facebook has passed eBay in page views, and is now in 6th place, just behind Google. 

Personally, i'm not a fan of social networking sites, but Facebook has been designed and implemented well, and their recent decision to allow application developers access to core Facebook features, such as user profiles and user connections, and even publishing to the News Feed, all with the control and permission of Facebook users is excellent. So if you build an app and a Facebook user chooses it, it will show up on their profile for all their friends to see, and they can enable that app with a single click, and so your application can spread virally to the 24 million other users.   Food for thought.

Tuesday 29 May 2007

Consuming RSS feeds

I use Google Reader eachday to trawl through all the RSS feeds i subscribe to, this is mainly because of the interface and  keyboard shortcuts make it very easy to quickly scan items and filter out those of interest.  Previously I've been using the sage plugin for firefox, which has worked well, and more recently the feeds bar for IE7-- again the keyboard short cuts on that are great.. for example if you are using IE7 :

Open Feeds CTRL+J
Open Feeds in pinned mode CTRL+SHIFT+J

However, i find Google Reader works best for me, especially the new shared items feature.   You can view my shared articles here

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/01316159295444228531

See how Robert Scoble reads 600+ feeds a day

 

Sunday 27 May 2007

Shark fishing in Sydney harbour

Nearly broke my rod reeling it in!

 

Sunday 20 May 2007

Ingunn

hit 30 this week.  To celebrate we met up with a few friends on Friday night at Bar Comida down Stanley St and did the harbour Bridge climb yesterday which was a great experience. 

Not sure what this is

Wating to catch a fish. I've actually got some smaller fish hooks now which i reckon will solve all problems.

  

 

"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."  (L. Ron Hubbard, founder of scientology)

ha ha ha.

Friday 18 May 2007

Bike maintainence

Web site WikiHow has a detailed guide for bicycle maintenance to help keep your bike in tip-top shape.

 

Saturday 5 May 2007

Top of my wishlist

The  iMate Momento 100 Picture Frame, which has a 10 inch 800 x 480 picture frame that has built in WiFi. You can plugin a memory card or USB drive with photos on them, or better still connect to the Momento Live Service and stream photos that to it.   You can also get photos to it by using Windows Media Connect from your Vista or XP Computer.

But the best part is, Momento supports Vista SideShow Gadgets (not SideBar). This means that you can download and use a bunch of gadgets on the Windows Live Gallery and enable them for use on the picture frame. The data then renders very nicely over the photos as the slide show goes.

At the moment it looks like the device only supports WEP and WPA for Wireless Encryption, but a firmware upgrade will support WPA2.

I've tried to order it on Amazon, but annoyingly they won't ship it down here.

Wouldn't it be great if you could stream some sort of image rss feed to it, from flickr perhaps? 









Top of my wishlist

The  iMate Momento 100 Picture Frame, which has a 10 inch 800 x 480 picture frame that has built in WiFi. You can plugin a memory card or USB drive with photos on them, or better still connect to the Momento Live Service and stream photos that to it.   You can also get photos to it by using Windows Media Connect from your Vista or XP Computer.

But the best part is, Momento supports Vista SideShow Gadgets (not SideBar). This means that you can download and use a bunch of gadgets on the Windows Live Gallery and enable them for use on the picture frame. The data then renders very nicely over the photos as the slide show goes.

At the moment it looks like the device only supports WEP and WPA for Wireless Encryption, but a firmware upgrade will support WPA2.

I've tried to order it on Amazon, but annoyingly they won't ship it down here.

Wouldn't it be great if you could stream some sort of image rss feed to it, from flickr perhaps? 









Wednesday 25 April 2007

How to beat a speeding ticket

 

So you got a traffic ticket and you want to do everything you can to avoid paying it - and the resulting car insurance rate increases. Bankrate says that traffic courts are set up to expedite cases quickly to generate revenue, so just putting up a fight earns you a good chance at beating the charge:

Their desire to get you in and out can work in your favor when fighting a ticket. Lawyers who specialize in traffic court cases have very high dismissal rates based simply on technicalities. In many cases, with a little effort and research you can obtain the same results.  A friend of mine reckon he's made challenging tickets into an art - getting off on little details like the cop's handwriting being illegible. Haved a look at this article for starters

And here's another sunset photo from the balacony, when the clouds briefy parted this miserable raining Anzac day. 

How to beat a speeding ticket

 

So you got a traffic ticket and you want to do everything you can to avoid paying it - and the resulting car insurance rate increases. Bankrate says that traffic courts are set up to expedite cases quickly to generate revenue, so just putting up a fight earns you a good chance at beating the charge:

Their desire to get you in and out can work in your favor when fighting a ticket. Lawyers who specialize in traffic court cases have very high dismissal rates based simply on technicalities. In many cases, with a little effort and research you can obtain the same results.  A friend of mine reckon he's made challenging tickets into an art - getting off on little details like the cop's handwriting being illegible. Haved a look at this article for starters

And here's another sunset photo from the balacony, when the clouds briefy parted this miserable raining Anzac day. 

Tuesday 24 April 2007

This week

i have mostly been: 

  • thinking about making some more homebrew and putting some malt in it this time
  • reading Collapse : How societies choose to fail or suceed by Jared Diamond
  • booking our holiday back to Europe
  • looking at booking some flying lessons
  • throwing out all the useless bits of paper i've been hoarding for the last 4 1/2 years
  • listening to some Jimi Hendrix albums i'd forgotten i'd downloaded

 

This week

i have mostly been: 

  • thinking about making some more homebrew and putting some malt in it this time
  • reading Collapse : How societies choose to fail or suceed by Jared Diamond
  • booking our holiday back to Europe
  • looking at booking some flying lessons
  • throwing out all the useless bits of paper i've been hoarding for the last 4 1/2 years
  • listening to some Jimi Hendrix albums i'd forgotten i'd downloaded

 

Monday 16 April 2007

10 most influential Amiga games

I owned an Amiga 500, 500+ and Amiga 1200.  Like  a girlfriend I loved them and spent countless hours with them, not to mention countless pound on peripherals and upgrades. 

So it is no surprise that having come across this [wired.com] article today, which lists the 10 most influential Amiga games of all time, that I'm all of a sudden overwhelmed with nostalgia.  The top 10 listed are:

  • Defender of the crown
  • Sensible Soccer
  • Speedball 2
  • Populous
  • Lemmings
  • Pinball Dreams
  • CannonFodder
  • Shadow of the Beast
  • Another World
  • Worms

"Ice Creeeammm"

I owned all of those, each one played to death. 

Out of those 10 my favorites would have to be sensible soccer, cannonfodder and populous. Mind you defender of the crown was damn good too, and someone has even made a flash version of it here. And, Speedball 2..  broke many a joystick trying to get into the 1st division.  Some also worth a thought though:

  • Chaos Engine
  • Flashback (would have swapped Another World for this one)
  • SWIV
  • Secret of Monkey Island (swapped for Pinball Dreams)
  • Turrican 2
  • Pirates! (swapped for Worms)
  • Elite 2
  • Syndicate
  • Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker

Well, I've got an xbox 360 these days, and although the games are graphically far far superior, they don't seem to be able to captivate me as much as the old Amiga era ones did.  Even some of the games I had on my Commodore 64 actually.  Having said that, the next Grand Theft Auto (IV) is out in October and looks unbelievable at the moment. 

10 most influential Amiga games

I owned an Amiga 500, 500+ and Amiga 1200.  Like  a girlfriend I loved them and spent countless hours with them, not to mention countless pound on peripherals and upgrades. 

So it is no surprise that having come across this [wired.com] article today, which lists the 10 most influential Amiga games of all time, that I'm all of a sudden overwhelmed with nostalgia.  The top 10 listed are:

  • Defender of the crown
  • Sensible Soccer
  • Speedball 2
  • Populous
  • Lemmings
  • Pinball Dreams
  • CannonFodder
  • Shadow of the Beast
  • Another World
  • Worms

"Ice Creeeammm"

I owned all of those, each one played to death. 

Out of those 10 my favorites would have to be sensible soccer, cannonfodder and populous. Mind you defender of the crown was damn good too, and someone has even made a flash version of it here. And, Speedball 2..  broke many a joystick trying to get into the 1st division.  Some also worth a thought though:

  • Chaos Engine
  • Flashback (would have swapped Another World for this one)
  • SWIV
  • Secret of Monkey Island (swapped for Pinball Dreams)
  • Turrican 2
  • Pirates! (swapped for Worms)
  • Elite 2
  • Syndicate
  • Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker

Well, I've got an xbox 360 these days, and although the games are graphically far far superior, they don't seem to be able to captivate me as much as the old Amiga era ones did.  Even some of the games I had on my Commodore 64 actually.  Having said that, the next Grand Theft Auto (IV) is out in October and looks unbelievable at the moment. 

Sunday 15 April 2007

Penguins

Spotted down Vacluse whilst fishing.  Well, I say fishing but really i may aswell not have even bothered taking my rod along, not a sausage.  Some trawler must have snuck in and cleared the harbour of fish i reckon.

 

 

Penguins

Spotted down Vacluse whilst fishing.  Well, I say fishing but really i may aswell not have even bothered taking my rod along, not a sausage.  Some trawler must have snuck in and cleared the harbour of fish i reckon.

 

 

Friday 13 April 2007

Vineyard Spam Salad

Getting some very strange ads in my gmail account when i click on the spam folder..

Vineyard Spam Salad

Getting some very strange ads in my gmail account when i click on the spam folder..

Tuesday 10 April 2007

Pressing

the Windows Key followed by the spacebar will bring the sidebar gadgets into context in Vista;  been bugging me for awhile that one.   Can see all the shortcuts here.

Spent the day Easter break in Sydney pottering about in our new car.  Blue Mountains again one day, Manly another and a spot fishing without any fish today. 

Currently trying to find cheap flights to London/Oslo.  Someone has written a handy sidebar travel wizard gadget which is proving invaluable.  We're planning on a ~3 week trip back to Europe to see friends and family..  very long overdue, although it'd be nice if some of you came down here to visit (hint hint)

This is a pretty interesting read: Technorati recently released their latest State of The Blogosphere report (renamed to something about the Live Web to avoid confusion with the Dead Web) chock full of statistics and pretty graphs.  Something like 120,000 new blogs are being created everyday, that's an enormous amount of user content, and makes you realise how big the web has become now.  Speaking of blogs, I entered mine in http://www.websitegrader.com/ - it got a measly 48/100 and a technocrati ranking of about 1,919,393.  I'm not sure but i think that means it is crap.  Oh well, no one reads this site anyway do they?

This made me laugh:

Q:

What do you get if you cross a pirate and a robot?

A:

Arrrrr 2-D2

Pressing

the Windows Key followed by the spacebar will bring the sidebar gadgets into context in Vista;  been bugging me for awhile that one.   Can see all the shortcuts here.

Spent the day Easter break in Sydney pottering about in our new car.  Blue Mountains again one day, Manly another and a spot fishing without any fish today. 

Currently trying to find cheap flights to London/Oslo.  Someone has written a handy sidebar travel wizard gadget which is proving invaluable.  We're planning on a ~3 week trip back to Europe to see friends and family..  very long overdue, although it'd be nice if some of you came down here to visit (hint hint)

This is a pretty interesting read: Technorati recently released their latest State of The Blogosphere report (renamed to something about the Live Web to avoid confusion with the Dead Web) chock full of statistics and pretty graphs.  Something like 120,000 new blogs are being created everyday, that's an enormous amount of user content, and makes you realise how big the web has become now.  Speaking of blogs, I entered mine in http://www.websitegrader.com/ - it got a measly 48/100 and a technocrati ranking of about 1,919,393.  I'm not sure but i think that means it is crap.  Oh well, no one reads this site anyway do they?

This made me laugh:

Q:

What do you get if you cross a pirate and a robot?

A:

Arrrrr 2-D2

Sunday 1 April 2007

Blue Mountains in flip-fops

Hadn't been to the Blue Mountains in awhile, so went along to Wentworth Falls this weekend, and walked down some slippery path to the Emerald Waterfall.  The route back up was unbelievably steep and the whole time i wished i hadn't just worn black flip-fops.  Every stone i trod on was agonising, and i didn't really get a chance to take in the scenery..

Here is the new Barina, it had a new timing belt put in last week, and a minor service which has stopped most of the squeaking.  The dent in the front door was from a previous owner, not Ingunn as most people seem to think. ha ha ha

Blue Mountains in flip-fops

Hadn't been to the Blue Mountains in awhile, so went along to Wentworth Falls this weekend, and walked down some slippery path to the Emerald Waterfall.  The route back up was unbelievably steep and the whole time i wished i hadn't just worn black flip-fops.  Every stone i trod on was agonising, and i didn't really get a chance to take in the scenery..

Here is the new Barina, it had a new timing belt put in last week, and a minor service which has stopped most of the squeaking.  The dent in the front door was from a previous owner, not Ingunn as most people seem to think. ha ha ha