Jason Oakley : The life of an Aussie geek!

Hmm.. that’d be ‘sweet’

Another day has dawned.

I didn’t take Sienna swimming yesterday morning as I woke up to the sounds of a chesty cough at 6am (yawn). She stayed asleep until 7:30am, which is unusual for her, so we didn’t do too much. I gave her some Panadol a couple of times. Might give her some more soon. Still a bit warm.

Around 10am we headed down to the shops. I had a look for a doorbell but they are about $35 so I might just get a replacement battery for the one I already have. It’s just looking rather old from being out in the sun. Plastic doesn’t tend to do well in direct sunlight. I also checked out some curtains but didn’t know the size of the window they would fit so went home and measured and went back to shops. A pity cos I had found a carpark spot right next to the front door Well, when I got back a lady saw me looking for a spot and pointed at her car. We waited til she pulled out (sounds like a pregnancy prevention method).

I went back to Target as they had a sale 20% off curtains and accessories. I went through the small range and selected a couple of curtains 120 by about 213cm. My window is 250cm so it was close enough. I did buy a curtain rod, but will keep it until I get my own place as I’m not sposed to put holes in the walls in this rental. So.. I .. um.. got inventive and used fishing line to tie the new thicker darker curtains to the existing curtain rod over the existing curtains It still wasn’t good enough so I put a black sheet over the top of that again. Now the room is nice and dark instead of looking like midday at 5am!

We got a few groceries. Sienna needed some more pasta (or “pasta more” as she calls it). This type she calls “pasketti”. I got some steaks and oven mix vegetables to have a real meal at some stage.

We had some lunch while there as well. Sienna wanted “Chicken chippies” – Chicken and chips, but I got a plate at the Asian food shop and served ourselves the types of food we like. Then, we just shared the plate between us. No point in paying $7.00 for her when she doesn’t eat that much. Just get one $8.50 plate and stack it on!

I really have to get back into exercises this week. I haven’t done any for about 1.5 weeks. It started raining a while ago so I didn’t go since the dirt track I run down would be muddy. What an excuse hey? Also all the Oporto I’ve been eating lately… I’ve been bad. Time to get back into it. Once you start it’s okay, but if you stop it’s hard to convince yourself to start again. I’m not the best one for motivating myself.

Will see how Sienna is feeling today and maybe take her to the park for some fun. It’d be nice to get out of the house at any rate. It’s looking a little overcast today tho so we shall see. Better not leave my clothes on the line too long either.

When I drop her off tonight at home I will clean up the house. I’ve been slack there, too. It’s just been one big slack week all over

Yea, well not to be one to do things by halves I shelled out $189 to get a new DVD player. The reason for the high (in today’s standards) cost? It does HDMI upsampling and comes with a HDMI cable They are probably worth at least $80-$180 depending on the quality and length.

It’s a Samsung HD860 DVD player.

Samsung’s HyperVision DVD Players up-convert the resolution of ordinary DVDs to 1080p/1080i/720p High Definition – which means you’ll experience the video and audio quality you didn’t think was possible from a DVD player.

Samsung’s DVD Players deliver high-quality DivX images. Insert DVDs & CDs that have DivX images downloaded via a computer and enjoy watching them on the large-scale TV!

HDMI™ (High Definition Multimedia Interface) transfers Hi-Definition video and audio from your HyperVision DVD Player to your TV, home theatre or other digital AV components without loss of any digital signal. Simply connect your DVD Player to your home theatre system with a single HDMI cable for high quality pictures and sound.

Samsung’s DVD Players feature state-of-the-art 14-bit video DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and video processing running at 108MHz. The 14-bit DAC produces up to 16384 colour values, as opposed to 1024 with 10-bit processing, providing extended dynamic contrast and detail with natural and smooth gradiation between highlights and shadows. With the high speed 108MHz video processing, it boosts image resolution as close to the original DVD source as possible, allowing you to enjoy more life-like pictures!

* Advanced 14-bit Video DAC
* DVD/CD/VCD/SVCD /MP3/WMA/HD-JPEG Playback
* EZ View/Instant Replay/Instant Skip

I bought it from the Good Guys. It was advertised in the shop for $199 but they knocked $10 off it, as they do. So I was way happy.

Review

I also found out how to “Region Free” it…

I found that you don’t need to buy a remote use your Samsung remote

Make sure the player is switched on, and is at the Samsung logo
screen. Also check the tray is shut and that there’s no disc in the
player.

Now press the REPEAT button on the remote, followed by a five digit
code. This code is different depending on what region your player is
*currently* set to:

R1 – 29334
R2 – 38767
R3 – 56732
R4 – 76884
R5 – 53814
R6 – 24462

So for example if you have an R2 player, press REPEAT-3-8-7-6-7.

If you’ve done this correctly (and your player is compatible with the
hack), you should see a number at the top left corner of the screen
corresponding to the current region.

Now, pressing any number from 1 to 6 will change to the corresponding
region. Or, press 9 for “auto-region” mode.

Next, press OPEN/CLOSE to open the tray, followed by Standby (or DVD
POWER) on the remote to close it and put the player into Standby mode.
The next time you turn your player on, the new region will be set.

Don’t forget that if you want to hack it again, you’ll need to use a
different code, as listed above. If it’s currently set to “region 9″,
use the code for the last *proper* region you set it to.

From VideoHelp.

I think I’ve been slack with this blog now I’ve got my MySpace one.
This is supposed to be my main one, but now the other has been getting a really good go.
The MySpace one is going to only be about me. This one, I’ll share about Sienna as well.

I picked her up late after work on Friday night as I went out for a Chinese dinner. I got her just before 8pm and had to go the long way round since the ferry had long stopped transporting cars. On the way home on the motorway, I followed behind a big 4WD. Then I saw them turn on their DVD player with a screen about 7″ in size. I saw straight away that it was Futurama playing so sped up to see if I could recognise the episode. Well, travelling at 100km/h you don’t tend to get TOO close and so seeing much on a 7″ screen was impossible. I kept squinting but my telescopic lens would not bring the image any closer to my retina. Eventually they took a side road and I said “Hey you suck! I was trying to watch that!”.
I was lucky there was a service station not far from the train station where my car is parked during the day as my bladder was full of Coke Zero before I got on the train. I had only JUST made the train and so could not use the facilities at the station. By the time the train pulled in about 40 mins later I was ready to burst.

Saturday morning was the usual trip to swimming and Sienna had fun splashing around, floating on her back and practising overam strokes while holding a kickboard. I had hoped they would serve coffee in the shop, but of course a swimming centre only sells ‘healthy’ stuff like lollies, carbonated drinks and chips. *sigh* They’d clean up if they offered to sell coffee to parents whom have only just woken up and dragged themselves down to the centre.

We came home and showered then went to the local shopping centre and bought a Maccas breakfast. I don’t normally eat at Maccas EVER if I can help it, but I had no milk at home and cbf having some toast, so I had to skip coffee as well.
I bought a breakfast for myself and a hash brown with apple for Sienna. Unfortunately the hash browns were cold. Not frozen, but cooked and cooled right down. I was too tired to bother arguing and had sat far away from the fast food stand so just ate it anyway. The coffee wasn’t great but it beat no coffee at all
We did our shopping and I checked into the local bottle shop for some red wine as I’m running out (I usually have a couple glasses at night). It also helps loosen my vocal chords for LibriVox. Only the local little shop just has El Cheapo Vino for up to $15 per bottle and the oldest is about 2004. I’ll have to visit a BWS (Beer Wine Spirits) store during the week and stock up.

We came back home and unpacked. Later that afternoon I was to meet a friend (Teddy aka Tharyn) who had flown down from Rockhampton on her way south. She had a stopover for a few hours in Brisbane and had asked me to come catch up with her and see her new bub.
Well, my alarm on my phone went off at 2pm but I didn’t hear it. By 2:45pm I had noticed the alarm and bundled Sienna into the car only to discover the next train was 7 mins away and we’d never make it. We took the train after that at about 3:25pm and got to Central at 4pm. We changed trains. Well, we were GOING TO change trains but by the time we got to the main concourse and back down again to the other platform the doors were shutting on the Airport train. The next one wasn’t until 4:32pm. So we waited. Soon it became apparent that it wasn’t arriving until about 4:37pm and by the time it would get us to the airport it would be after 5pm. Since Tharyn’s flight was boarding at 5:15pm there was no longer any point, so I rang her and we headed home.
We grabbed some Triple Ripple Meatasaurus Dominos Pizza and headed home.

Today it rained. I had some things on the line, but luckily my main (first) washing load had already been taken off the line, so I raced out and grabbed the now-damp clothes and hung them up in the garage on my makeshift line.
I already had another load in — mostly towels and chair covers — so once they were done I added them to the garage line.

Since it was raining, I had one of those cartoon lightbulbs appear over my head and backed the car out of the garage into the soft, light downpour. I then went back in and grabbed my big car sponge and went out in my shorts and washed the car in the rain. It’s about the best way to do it during our drought. The car looks nice and clean now and it looks like I will have to mow the lawn again pretty soon.

I took Sienna back home tonight and recorded another chapter of a book for LibriVox. I had done two earlier today while Sienna slept, so I’ve had a lot of reading today. They aren’t short chapters either, so it’s been a bit of a slog, but fun all the same. You can see some links to recordings I’ve done on my “VOX” page linked on the left, there. They are mostly short poems. The stories I’ve read have only been chapters in the middle of books so no point linking until other people finish their chapters as well.

Now, it’s off to bed for me!

It used to take me 6 months to earn my cheque from Google Adsense. Now it’s taken over a year and I still haven’t earned enough.

The pages get updated enough and I’m sure the stats will show the website gets as many hits as ever, but there aren’t many clicks on the Adsense banners.

I’m guessing the reason is browsers with built-in ad blockers actually block non-annoying ads such as the Google ones. You would think they’d be left out of filters since they aren’t in flash and don’t chew all your bandwidth, but I guess there are people around whom still would not like to see them. Unfortunately I was using the money for web hosting and domain registration etc.

I hope you get lots.

Of whatever it is you like to get.

When it is a day such as today.

Or maybe you abhor commercialism.

In which case you are a cheapskate.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. I’m really horny and so are you!

Let’s get bizzeh!

Your eyes are like two limpid pools of loveliness, your hair is like a golden waterfall. Plus those short skirts you wear make me really horny.

I didn’t do a heck of a lot over the weekend. Too damn hot again. My airbed ended up springing a couple (few?) holes and even though I duct-taped one, I didn’t find (or search for) any others. I ended up pulling Sienna’s mattress out and she slept on the couch. At least we were both cool enough to sleep.

Last night, instead of going to Poker, I stayed home and cleaned the place up. I got all the stuff off the floor and also cleaned off the kitchen bench which tends to automatically attract all sorts of rubbish and crap. I then caught up with a couple episodes of House. Well, one in the end since I’d already seen the other. Place looks great tho.

We had some super(un)healthy Dominos pizza for lunch then dinner. It was delicious and no doubt dripping with calories n stuff heh
YOU HAVE GOOD PIZZA YES? I WOULD LIKE TO ORDER PIZZA!

Tonight I recorded another chapter of a book. This time it was “The Clue of the Twisted Candle” by Edgar Wallace. It’s a mystery story. Once it’s finished I’m gonna download the whole book and burn it to audio CD for my parents to listen to. I’m sure they will enjoy it. Mum is particularly a mystery buff, including Hercule Poirot and Agatha Christie, among others.

At the moment, I’m ripping my Wendy Rule CDs to iTunes to listen to on the way to/from work. Haven’t listened in ages. I only found two cds but I’m sure I bought more. Will have to look around some more.