Archive for 2007Yeah it’s another one. Who knows how accurate it is? Take the IQ Test now and don’t pay for the complete results breakdown, just enter an email address to receive your result.
And hopefully so will I Anyway. This morning Sienna and I got up early as I had to go to the RACQ Assessor to see if they will authorise the guys to give me a new front fender for my car. It’s going well and the guy was really friendly and helpful. Even gave me some advice he thought I may inquire about once the job was done. Next, we went for a drive to find a costume for me for a Hallowe’en party next Saturday night. Cath and I are going over to Mil’s place for the party. I found mine and it wasn’t too expensive.. just under $45. I have a couple of accessories to buy as well but that’s the main part. I will report next weekend about it since I don’t want to spoil the surprise. We drove from there to the airport as the Aviation Australia (check out that url! I’ve not heard of that TLD before!) section was having a tour day where you go through to find out careers in the Airlines, from Avoinics to Hostessing. It was rather informative but I would have got more out of it had I not had a 4yo to keep in line the whole time. She wasn’t naughty very much but kept being interruptive. I can’t really blame her as she was probably bored out of her mind. We came back home and had some lunch and Sienna had a nap. She just woke up now. I have been putting together my old server as a Windows XP box for Catherine. Her old crappy Windows ME box needs a serious replacing (I can’t believe I have touched the damn computer!!!). I’ve spent the last couple of days installing XP and updates and other applications to make it as usable as possible. I have to get a new battery for it, though as it keeps losing the BIOS settings, including time and date. Will see about that tomorrow. Tomorrow I think I’ll get Sienna another dress or two. Last weekend we got some shoes and I think it’d be nice for her to have a new dress. She is certainly looking forward to it. As for my own PC, I opened it up to take out the old 80Gb HDD to put into Cath’s computer (since I had only an old 20Gb HDD in there) and saw my 120Gb HDD sitting in there, unconnected! I put the 80Gb’er into her new PC and hooked up the 120Gb for me to use. I’ve been thinking of what to do with it and decided I will have another look at Apple OSX86. I will create a partition for that and also another partition which I will probably make FAT32 as it’s read/writable on Windows, Apple OS & Linux. I need the lowest common denominator. I don’t think Linux/Mac do well yet with NTFS although it’s getting there. As for Linux, I had originally installed that for Catherine as her friends were trying to convince her to change (fanbois! Or .. hang on.. they are female so is that fangrrls? heh). I decided to forego that and just install Windows XP when it hit me.. I should just put XP on there and supply her with a LiveCD with Linux on it so she could at least test it out to see what it’s like. That way she can have the best of both worlds! From smh.com.au.. ADSL without landline line rental:
Copied from Wikipedia and elsewhere…
Try this funky puzzle game. I can’t remember the other flash one it reminds me of.. started with S. (No, not Sprout as well) Play Sprout. Friday afternoon I went to the local chemist and had a sleep test questionnaire. They say I’m a high risk for sleep apnoea (I already knew this) and are going to test me in November by getting me to strap a machine to myself and let the sensors read my vitals overnight. I went home and Catherine came over and we grabbed our suitcases and headed for the train. She was astonished at the price ($17 each) to go to the airport. We caught the train, changed at Eagle Junction and then hopped off at the Domestic Terminal. We booked in and got our plane. While flying Catherine suggested we get a drink. They have small sized bottles of wine on the plane so I pressed the hostess button. She came over and I asked for a drink. She said they would be up soon with the trolley. They brought the trolley up and asked what we’d like. We ordered two bottles each. They said we could only have one each at a time, but could pay for both and they would come back with the others afterwards. She said to push the button when we were ready for the other bottles. I was going to push it again and nearly did but didn’t ;) We drank our bottles and they brought the other ones which we had on the way back to Earth near Newcastle. My cousin and her boyfriend picked us up and we headed to their home. We sat up for a couple of hours talking and went to our room. We had a relaxing bath and it was off to bed around 1am. We woke early but got back to sleep for a bit. Later that morning the visitors started arriving. After some time we had 40-50 relatives buzzing around us and eating the BBQ lunch. I was roped into a cricket match as the captain of a team. We didn’t bother much with keeping score and just had a fun time. I went to hit a ball which bounced over me, spun around, dropped the bat and landed smack bang on the ground on top of a bindi patch. They were stuck in my hands and leg which got scratched up and I had a pocketful as well. Catherine was having a lie down due to hayfever and I found her in the bedroom when the game had ended. Once most of the people had left we borrowed an old Festiva and drove into Newcastle to meet up with Chris and Jo and their daughter. I bought a couple of coffees at the Kotara Garden City shopping centre. Unfortunately (!) the cash register was broken so they had to give it to us free. Sweet! After a chat we jumped back in the car and drove home again. On the way I had passed a place I used to live in at Broadmeadow and showed Catherine. We got home and had another chat and drink then went to bed. Earlier in the day I had shown Catherine the YouTube page for Chris Crocker crying about Britney Spears and all the parodies of that recording. We had a fun time looking at that. Sunday morning we got up and just relaxed, playing Pool and checking out the computer DVD burner which I didn’t have time to ascertain any issues. We had another BBQ lunch of the leftovers from the previous day and Jenny (my cousin) drove us back to the airport. We got our plane back and Catherine drove her car home to look after her animals. I drove over to pick up Sienna and we came back, tidied up the house and drove back to the airport to pick up my friend RuninDeer and her husband. We drove them back to my place and I cooked some pork and baked vegetables. We headed off to bed. Monday morning we got up and had breakfast then drove down to the Gold Coast and stopped at the Hard Rock cafe so RuninDeer’s husband Don could buy some souvenirs. He collects Hard Rock cafe pins. We had lunch there and headed further south to the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary. We had a photo of us holding a koala taken then checked out the other animals and things around. Sienna had a photo of her holding a baby crocodile which I will upload to Flickr later. We saw koalas, dingoes, kangaroos, wedge tail eagles, giant crocodiles, wombats, etc. On the way out we bought some things since I paid with my credit card and that brand supplied me with a $5 food and drink voucher and a $5 souvenir voucher. We jumped in the car and RuninDeer & Don bought some honey from the local store and we drove home. On the way home we got caught in the storm and by the time we were about 10 mins from home we could hardly see 10 feet in front of the car. We parked the car and ran inside as fast as we could. I cooked up some spaghetti pasta for everyone for dinner and the guests fell asleep watching TV so I turned it off and put the dishes in the dishwasher and went to bed. Yesterday we got up, had breakfast and I drove everyone to the Sunshine Coast. We first stopped in at The Big Pineapple at Nambour. We just got there in time to catch the little train around the plantation and stopped at the Koala Station to go feed the animals. Sienna fed the donkey, alpacas, cow and goats. We also saw a dog, some ducks, chickens, dingoes, koalas bellowing and pigs. We went back to the station and waited about 20 mins for the train which took us to the top again. We went inside and for lunch had icecream (oops hehe). I had a really big icecream parfait thing. It was half a pineapple with a little trench dug into it and topped with fruit salad and two big scoops of icecream as big as a fist, drenched in cream and chocolate topping. Yum! I ate all the top stuff and Don asked if I was going to eat the pineapple as well. I took that as a challenge and did so. They were surprised I could eat it. I said apparently I ate one the same size when I was about 8yo and was on a holiday up there with my parents. Sienna had a junior parfait with two scoops of icecream and cream and chocolate topping. How spoiled is she? hehe :) After that, we drove down the coast again to Opals Down Under. I bought Sienna a necklace with an S shape which has an opal imprinted on it. I bought Catherine an opal pendant surrounded by cubic zirconias (let’s hope she doesn’t read the blog hehe). I wish they had a photo of it on the website, but maybe I can get a photo of it myself. They had an outside room which had a floor covered in little stones and lots of smooth rocks and opals scattered around amongst them. Sienna got a small plastic tub for $5 and we went in there and found a bunch of stones. I will need to get a photo of that for Flickr as well. Shortly afterwards we went to Aussie World. We didn’t go on any rides but went into the souvenir stores to find some things for the guests. RuninDeer wanted an aboriginal doll for her sister but only one could be found and it is $150!! We headed home around 4pm after having a beer at the Ettamogah Pub. It took 2 hours due to traffic on the Gateway Motorway and we got caught in a bit of a storm again. Last night Catherine came over and I bought some pizzas from Dominos pizzas. We watched a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers and Black Books and it was time for Catherine to go home as the guests were getting sleepy again. This morning we had breakfast and I drove the guests to the airport where they caught a plane to Sydney. Sienna and I came back and then went to a local Smash Repairs shop to get a quote on the dent in my car. We came back and now am just waiting for a call from Sienna’s mum to take her home again then I’m off to Catherine’s for the night. I picked up Sienna Friday night. On Saturday we played some games, eg. Snakes and Ladders and her new computer ABC Phonetic spelling game. That afternoon Lisa and Gina arrived and we went out to the local Services Club for dinner. I had Ribs with Smoky BBQ sauce. On Sunday Catherine came over and we all headed down the coast in my car. We stopped at the Carrara Markets and had some lunch and browsed for a short while. Sienna went on the airplane merry go round and I bought her some bling for $2. After that, we hopped back in the car and drove up to the Springbrook mountains. We enjoyed checking out the lookout and trying to see the Gold Coast from the lookout. We also had some coffee at a local cafe. We drove to the cabin Catherine and I stay at to show them, but someone else was there so we didn’t stay around and just turned around and left. We drove back down the mountain and dropped Sienna off at her mum’s place where her brother was waiting for her, up from Sydney for the school holidays. When we left her we stopped into the Montezuma’s restaurant and had dinner. While we were there a guy stood in the doorway and slowly collapsed to the floor. Catherine noticed it and we called out for the staff whom went over to make sure he was okay. We don’t think it was alcohol or drugs but more like a hypo attack by a guy with diabetes. He just sort of slowly lay down and his head banged softly on the door frame, then his eyes rolled back in his head. The staff went to his aid and shortly he was up and sitting in a chair, but not looking all that good. We finished off our dinner and headed home. Monday morning I left for work and shortly afterwards so did Catherine. Lisa and Gina drove down to the Gold Coast and off to Sydney, popping in to see some friends on the way. All in all it was a wonderful weekend. Last night Catherine and I went to the Hogs Breath restaurant. I had steak and ribs and it was delicious. (Work it, make it, do it, (Work it harder make it better, Th-th-that that don’t kill me I need ya right now Let’s get lost tonight N-n-now th-that that don’t kill me I need ya right now I don’t know if you got a man or not If God put me in your plans or not Th-that that don’t kill me(oh) I need ya right now You know how long I’ve been on ya? (Harder, better, faster, stronger) N-n-now th-that that don’t kill me I need ya right now Never over [x7] Something else interesting we found out. Brisbane has Funnelweb spiders. Brisbane’s Funnelwebspiders are five times more poisonous than the Sydney ones. Brisbane breeds Funnelweb spiders to produce the antivenin for Sydney hospitals. There are 46 species of Funnelweb spiders. The further north you go in Australia, the more poisonous the Funnelweb spiders become. Last Friday night Catherine and I headed up into the Springbrook mountains to a couple of lovely cabins in the bush. The first one was a nice place with three split levels. The main bedroom being upstairs and to the left of the rest of the home. Inside was a newly renovated kitchen and downstairs is the lounge with a large fireplace and a renovated bathroom. We unpacked the car and rested with a few drinks since it was too late at night to do much else. We headed to bed between 12am and 1am and slept well. The next morning we got up and had some breakfast. While there we went on a trail walk for a few kilometres for some exercise. We also saw some of the local waterfalls. Saturday night we went to see the Glow Worms. The guy hosting the viewing told us how he found the glow worms. He had been walking around his yard in the dark with a beer in his hand and fell down the embankment dug out of the back yard. He awoke four hours later and was unable to see out of one of his eyes. He looked up and saw all the glow worms shining brightly in the dark and began his study and research. Ten years later he was digging around near the worms and found the beer bottle he’d lost all that time ago. It’s now on display in his garage along with glowing fungus on tree branches, snail shells and various funnel web spiders, preserved. The snails eat the glowing fungus and spread the spores. The fungus makes the snails glow in the dark. There were also glowing worms and foliage. We are going back in November/December as that’s when the fireflies are buzzing around, lit up. The female fireflies lie on the ground. When male fireflies are nearby the male ones light up and look for a response from below. Unfortunately due to there being about a 1000:1 ratio of male to females, the males blind each other with the flickering lights and nobody sees the females below. Eventually the guys give up and piss off, then one or two fly back later and see the females and score. The fireflies have no mouth and are born with all the energy they will have for their short lives. They spend their life burning themselves to a crisp. We visited Panchos Mexican restaurant at the bottom of the mountains. I had a taquito with jalapenos and a steak with hot sauce and more jalapenos. Cath had some taquitos too and a couple of glasses of Sangria. Her main meal consisted of chilli con carne, a beef taco and a chicken enchilada. She asked for a side jug of hot sauce (not the hottest one there) but it wasn’t that hot after all. Sunday morning we were woken at 6:30am with a KADONK! noise. Kadonk Kadonk Kadonk. I was trying to figure out what the damn noise was and Cath got up, telling me it’s a bird banging it’s head on the window. She shooed it off and hopped back in bed. We drifted off to sleep when suddenly KADONK! *Sigh* She got up and scared it off again and back to bed. Every half hour or so KADONK KADONK! I got up and saw to it a couple of times but eventually gave up and we went to get breakfast. Due to the noise, we named the little bird “Kadonk!”. Some time later it had gone quiet outside and I decided either the bower bird gave up or got knocked unconscious hehe. There was another bird nearby which made a really weird kaaawwwwoooaaaahhhhrrr noise. I decided the sound was the bird having an orgasm so from then on it became the “Orgasm bird”. That morning I also discovered a large brown tick attached to my skull and freeloading off the juices inside (Don’t say it was starving!). I went to the top of the driveway to get a signal on my phone which I was not going to take, but luckily did. I phoned the Directory Assistance whom SMS’ed me the number for the Poison’s Information Centre. Unforunately, my phone could not ring the 131 number as it wasn’t available to mobiles. They said they cannot connect calls, only send SMS messages. Maybe I should have tried 1234 (or the cheaper 12456 Connect thingo) but didn’t think about that. I phoned the DA back again and they sent me the number for the Brisbane Women’s and Children’s Hospital which has a Poisons ward. That number had me on hold due to the large number of phone calls so I gave up and phoned dad and got him to ring the Information Centre’s 131 number instead. He phoned back and they said to grab it as close to the skull with tweezers and rip the whole thing out. They said Methylated Spirits can be used in other areas and the tick will just give up and fall off, but being on the skull you will get very sick very quickly and start vomiting so the best thing to do is to get it out fast. Cath got her tweezers and pulled it out. The whole lot came out completely. Also apparently Metho will irritate the tick as well and cause more problems. Monday night we sat outside at the second cabin in the bush and opened the back doors with the music blaring.. at about 11pm. Cath chopped up some fruit and stuff and we put them on the ledge nailed to the handrail of the back verandah. We huddled under doonas and waited and watched. Eventually a possum would come along to have a look around, after smelling the bounty. From time to time another one or two would become game enough to climb up as well and eat together. Occasionally one might hiss and snarl at another but there were no fights. One really oversized possum climbed up for a feed and I inched my way over to it and handfed it some apple. That was really cool! The first cabin we went to had an outdoors showerhead attached to the side of the cabin. You open a big frosted glass door and shower in the open air. One side of you is the frosted glass door. Behind you is the house and bathroom. The other two sides have no cover at all and are just open to the air. If you look up through the bushes you can see the traffic driving by, completely oblivious to what’s going on nearby. With the hot water raining down and the steam drifting off into the sky, along with a cool breeze blowing through, it’s really amazing. We have vowed to return to this one again when it’s a bit warmer and firefly time. I have a bunch of photos and a video of the trail and waterfalls, etc but my k800i phone has died. I ordered a new one from eBay and Three is going to send me one gratis, but theirs will take some time to arrive. On the way home we stopped at the Fudge shop and bought some. I bought two chunks and Cath bought three.. one for her dad. There was one called CS Cowboy but they didn’t write what the CS stood for. So, after all that we decided we can last four days together without any problems. It was the longest we’ve been together and we had a blast. Things are definitely going really well. Looking for a new game to play? Perhaps a web based one to play at work Just found this: OzGames200. Click it.. don’t click it.. who cares Also you can try Top Web Games. Waste your life away playing Sproing! Gotta catch ‘em all!
Retrieved from WebMD. I decided to actually get something productive done while sick at home today and have started working on some articles to do with computer security. Check out the article so far on my OakleyIT website and let me know what you think. If there’s anything I can add or change, please feel free to post a comment.
iPod shuffle
iPod nano
iPod classic
iPod touch
* Prices are obviously $USD. It would be interesting to see if the Australian Starbucks will provide the same access as in the USA. Some more information on the website. As you can see Cath and I met up with Mil, Josh and Matty at the Faith nightclub for a fun night out. Unfortunately, the drinks were ridiculously expensive. Cath bought a beer and a coke and it was $9!! The coke was for me, due to being the designated driver, and it was mostly water anyway. I did a bit of shaking my booty on the floor and Cath, not being the dancy type, met up with some friends from the web forum we met on and chatted to them for a while. Mil took some nice photos of us all, check out my Flickr soon for some really good ones of Cath and I. Saturday morning, Cath headed home and I went and picked up Sienna. We had some lunch (I was running late) then had a nap from about 2:30pm to 4pm. We took it easy the rest of the day. Sunday morning, Sienna and I went for a trip down to the Gold Coast. I wanted to really open up the throttle and see how my car went. The readout says I do 6.4 litres for every 100kms at the moment, but it’s slowly going down. That’s pretty damn good mileage (kilometerage?). We went to the Carrara Markets and then to the Pacific Fair shopping centre. When we arrived at the markets, Sienna yelled out “I remember the markets! It’s lot of fun!” and told me something which probably did happen about 6 months to a year ago when we were last there, but I have no memory of. Sienna had fun putting the pingpong balls into the mouths of the clowns at the markets and won some nice stuff. She now has more bling so she’s way happy. She also went on an airplane merry go round ride. The guy asked what speed he should put it on as the only other girl was another one older than Sienna. I told him to put it on top speed since she’s such a daredevil. She enjoyed it immensely. We had some lunch while there and I picked up a couple of things then we jumped into the car to go to the shops. We went for a ride on the little train there which drives around the outside shopping centre part. Sienna got a train stamp which she was happy with and the driver was surprised by all Sienna’s bling. He said she’s just like Carmen Miranda. We went around the shops and Sienna waved to whomever would wave back. We grabbed some Copenhagen ice creams and ate them while Sienna laughed at the kids on a demo exercise machine which you stand on and it wobbles your bum to make you lose weight. She had a bit of a go and liked it, then we jumped in the car and headed home. As soon as I got home I grabbed our stuff and jumped back in the car to take Sienna back to her mum’s place. I dropped her off and drove over to Cath’s place for dinner. Very yum! Buttered Chicken! (Three buttered chickens and a totally insufficient dowry! heh!). Today I’m not so crash hot. I have the flu and my throat has almost closed right up. The doctor I saw this morning put me on double antibiotics for today and then the normal dose tomorrow. I also picked up some Nurofen Plus anti-inflammatory pills and 1000mg of vitamin C pills. I bought a new bottle of Difflam throat gargle which has antiseptic and anaesthetic in it to numb the throat. I’m really loving my new car. It feels so comfortable and nice to drive. “Can I has cheeseburger?” the cat whined plaintively. It’s voice was an electronic squeal that grated on Jim’s nerves. Jim swatted the cat on the butt and pushed it off of the desk. “No.” “Plz?” it mewled up at him, eyes unblinking. Jim shook his head. “I said no.” “OMG.” the cat yowled. Jim threw up his hands and tried to focus on his work. Schematics for cybernetic voice-boxes filled the screen of his laptop. EMP hardened as most things were these days. No help there. There had to be- “ROFL!” a cat screeched, rolling onto its back on the desk, swiping at him. “Shut up!” Jim shoved it to the floor. “Happy cat is out of happy.” another cat burbled, laying flat on the floor behind his chair. He glanced at it and went back to work, muttering, “Happy cat is out of happy because happy cat snorts catnip like it was going out of style. Happy cat needs to knock that shit off before happy cat burns out his teeny-tiny brain.” “Plz can I has cheeseburger?” the first cat purred, leaping into his lap and rubbing its head against his arm. “No, no, no! A hundred times no!” Jim banged his head against his desk. “Just shut up!” “I has bucket!” a third cat yowled from the top of a bookcase. Jim whirled. “Get out of that flower pot!” “I can fix it.” a fourth cat mumbled, fumbling at Jim’s laptop. Jim turned back and swatted it away from him. His computer screen hiccuped. “Don’t touch that!” “Cheeseburger!” “No! No cheeseburger!” Jim buried his face in his hands. “No damn cheeseburger.” It had seemed like such a good idea. People loved cats. People loved those stupid pictures. Just a slight cybernetic modification to the animal’s larynx and bam! Talking cats. Everybody who was anybody wanted one. For about ten minutes. Then nobody did. The fad ended and he was left holding the bag. “OMG lurve you.” the cat on his lap grumbled. Jim sighed and stroked it. “Thank you.” “Can I has cheeseburger now?” “AUGH!” It wasn’t the talking that bothered people really. It was the fact you couldn’t get the damn things to shut up. Check out the mega slide some guys made when their parents went away… Jason and good friend, Matt Damon
Jason and Cath
Jason, Cath, Mil & Josh’s shirt
Jason, Cath, Mil, Josh and Matt
Yay! Finally I have uploaded some photos of my new car. We had a great time out at Faith last night dancing. We met up with Mil and Josh and even saw some people from the forum we weren’t expecting to see. Had a fantastic time. This morning I picked up Sienna and we are chilling at home.
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