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