Well, if anything was going to remind me that I needed to quickly blog my Currypalooza event this Friday, it was the Lollapalooza episode of The Simpsons on television last night. So, commence invitiation:

You’re cordially invited to my “Currypalooza” event (subtitled by Glenn as “Curry for Losers” :squint: - so you’ll obviously be there, Glenn? :squint: )
Friday evening, for dinner, at my chalet in the mountains. Or, if you don’t know where that is, come to my apartment and we’ll leave together from there. :jerkit:

Shall we say from 7pm? Please RSVP and plan to bring a bottle of wine, for your drinking pleasure.

Oh, a fond “come back soon!” to Burt, who has returned to work in Canberra after her flight home yesterday. Oh, great party, Danielle. I was sorry the next morning.

Over the past few days, I have been forced to research VoIP, and I decided to write this article in the hope that it will help others.

My last Telstra bill was $224.90.
This included :
* 107 local calls @ 17.5c ea = $18.71
* 4 local calls @ 20 c ea = $0.80
* 26 calls to 13 Numbers @ $0.25 ea = $6.50
* 21 STD calls @ av $1.08 ea = $22.75
* 8 calls to mobile @ av $0.50 ea = $3.99
* 2 international calls @ av $0.36 ea = $0.78
* Line rental for 11 days @ $8.86 … av $0.80 per day = $8.86
* Line rental for 167 days @ $162.51 … av $0.97 per day = $162.51
Grand Total … $224.90

Frankly, I was surprised how many local calls I make, considering my mobile is on a cap of $79 per month. I blame Blacky :tongue:

So, for VoIP you really need broadband. For me, at least, that means ADSL. My Mum and Dad are on cable, so their figures (for example) would be better.

In Australia, to get ADSL, you need a phone line, so the rental of the phone line is unavoidable. If you’re not using the landline to make calls, however, you can get away with far cheaper plan costs, with higher call costs.
Telstra’s Home Line Budget plan is $18.50 per month ($0.60 per day on average), but has high call costs to balance that.
http://www.telstra.com.au/phones/homeservices/plans_homeline_budget.htm is the URL for those interested. A quick rework of my bill just by switching plans shows:
* 107 local calls @ 30c ea = $32.10
* 4 local calls @ 30 c ea = $1.20
* 26 calls to 13 Numbers @ $0.30 ea = $7.80
* 21 STD calls @ av $1.15 ea = $24.25
* 8 calls to mobile @ av $0.50 ea = $3.99
* 2 international calls @ av $0.60 ea = $1.20
* Line rental for 11 days @ av $0.60 per day = $6.60
* Line rental for 167 days @ av $0.60 per day = $100.20
Grand Total … $177.34
so that’s the price that VoIP has to compete with - the lowest price available for the calls made. (BTW, I’m switching plans I think).

Skype is a pseudo-VoIP service that allows you to call from your computer at 4.2c/min, which isn’t bad. It’s not true VoIP imo, in that it requires your computer to be logged in and running the software to use it.

So, the other service available in Engin’s SIP service. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol. SIP is the VoIP standard (which is used by VoIPer) for transmitting telephony. To use this service, you basically have broadband, and a VoIP phone such as this:
http://pricepoint.com.au/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1091 ($165.20)
or a converter box for your existing phone:
http://www.engin.com.au/public/voicebox.htm ($149.00)
That’s the initial set-up cost.

Ongoing, you’d need to pay $9.95 per month (average $0.33 / day) to Engin for use of their proxy server:
http://www.engin.com.au/public/voiper/voiper_byo.htm
which entitles you to 10c calls within Australia, untimed, and 29c/min to mobile phones. Any calls Engin to Engin are free, and international calls are 3.5c per minute to most countries. My phone bill would become:
* 107 local calls @ 10c ea = $10.70
* 4 local calls @ 10 c ea = $0.40
* 26 calls to 13 Numbers @ $0.10 ea = $2.60
* 21 STD calls @ av $0.10 ea = $2.10
* 8 calls to mobile @ av $0.29 ea = $2.32
* 2 international calls @ av $0.04 ea = $0.08
* Line rental for 11 days @ av $0.60 per day = $6.60
* Line rental for 167 days @ av $0.60 per day = $100.20
* Engin Subscription for 11 days @ av $0.33 per day = $33.06
* Engin Subscription for 167 days @ av $0.33 per day = $55.11
Grand Total … $213.17

So you can see that I’m only getting screwed because I need Telstra’s line rental for my internet connection. Cable internet, for instance, wouldn’t need this connection, and the bill quickly drops:
* 107 local calls @ 10c ea = $10.70
* 4 local calls @ 10 c ea = $0.40
* 26 calls to 13 Numbers @ $0.10 ea = $2.60
* 21 STD calls @ av $0.10 ea = $2.10
* 8 calls to mobile @ av $0.29 ea = $2.32
* 2 international calls @ av $0.04 ea = $0.08
* Engin Subscription for 11 days @ av $0.33 per day = $33.06
* Engin Subscription for 167 days @ av $0.33 per day = $55.11
Grand Total … $106.37

At that rate, the special VoIP equipment pays for itself every 2 months, based on my usage. Anybody on cable should seriously consider the benifits of VoIP, and anybody who makes a lot of calls both within Australia and outside Australia can stand to save some serious money.

So, it’s been quite a week.

Friday I went to uni and did a few hours class. The first tute was only 1.5 hours long, because we’ve done the majority of our group-work for it, and the 2nd tute wasn’t really a tute. We read a thing, while the tutor had consultations for two hours with each person. The rest of us did nothing constructive, much as we tried.

So, for the rest of the day, I had to go and do some stuff. I’d planned on going to Liam’s to learn to weld, but that didn’t happen - I’m going to build a big-ass throne out of steel pipe. And that night, we had Cebs, which was screen printing and cooking night, so I had to get myself things to print onto. It’s very hard to find a plain, rich yellow coloured t-shirt these days - they’re all washed out pale yellow.

I made up a special one for Liam, because he asked me to. I screen printed a shirt, and a singlet with the Cebs logo, and a singlet with just a double headed eagle, and liam’s request. And we cooked chocolate chip pikelets and ginger cakes with roasted pecans on top. Awesome.

Saturday was spent very lazily I think. I don’t remember doing much during the day, but Saturday night came, and it was Shane’s 21st party. There sure are a lot of them around at the moment. Mine’s in a month, and plans are still coming together.

I got home at 2, and went straight to bed after ironing my cebs uniform. This morning was the Cebs Annual Service, with cebs from Toowoomba coming down, and GFS from most of Brisbane there too. We ate the foods that we cooked on Friday night. Was good to chat to the GFS leaders and other cebs afterwards. I had a solo to sing, which apparently went well, considering when I arrived home.

It’s a big week of uni coming up, so, I’ll probably not write on here for a little while again. I know you can handle that.

Hey dudes, I actually forgot to do this earlier, but I meant to, so here it is:

Rob (Wilson)’s Trivia Night - Saturday night. Kids are likely to find friends to play with. BYO food and drink … apparently people bring a bottle of vino and a snack-type plate to add to the table.

Should be fun, I’m going, just checking to see if anyone else is interested.

no time no time … straight to the point.

1. Brett spewed at Glara’s place a couple of times, and it was hilarious. Bernt was a cool guy. Glenn won money because he can’t bet on the right race.

2. SLC this weekend is a brunch at Jupiter’s on the Gold Coast. My friends Dan (formerly of Canberra) and Burt (still of Canberra) will also be there.
Ok, that’s it … sorry for the brevity.

Well, me old mate Liam has reached a great milestone ineed. Today is the day of his 21st birthday, and so we celebrated last night. He came over here for what we’d planned on being a quiet night - he brought a bottle of vanilla Galliano, which we enjoyed, before, and I’m ashamed to say it, hitting the Passion Pop - of all things - while playing Tony Hawk pro skater and other fun games on Xbox.

Anyway, Liam got some ants in his pants, so we called a cab to take us into the valley. We pretty much just mooched around, finding places to wet our whistles. We even pretended to watch a soccer game in one of the places, and getting turned away from another place because we were wearing “skate shoes”. “These are basketball shoes though!” I argued, and Liam called him a hypocrite because he had the dirtiest pair of shoes I’ve ever seen. “These are Reebok Pumps” was his lame-ass response. What a knob.

But that didn’t dampen our spirits. We crashed a friend’s 21st who happened to also be in the valley - theirs wasn’t as rockin as our celebrations though, they had altogether too little alcohol.

I met these girls, and we walked them to the cab-rank, went and had a few drinks, came back to see them and ask if they wanted to go to the casino, and they’d only moved 2-3 metres in the line. Taxis were shocking. By the time we got to the city, I was pretty stuffed, so we decided to call it a night. Like I said, Taxi’s were shocking, and we didn’t want to wait in line, so we started walking. We arrived at the Normanby where taxis were plentiful and the line was small, so it all worked out, and we even got an executive service cab! Bargain.

We played a bit more Xbox before turning in for the night. We had to be at West End for birthday breakfast at 10, so we snuck a few hours sleep.

By the way, Liam - your skateboard is here :slap::tongue:

There was an old website I used to visit called the Brunching Stuttlecocks, at http://www.brunching.com but it’s hardly there any more. They had one great time waster where you could vote for whether a list of random items were “Hot” or “Not” and then it rated them from hottest to least hot, based on the answers of thousands of people who voted. I don’t know why that came into my mind tonight, but I’m going to vote this week as “Hot”.

Since the last time I blogged, not much very exciting happened, but there has been some business. I’ve been a bit lonely for the past week or so, actually, without Blacky and his troupe of boyfriends in a parade for my amusement, but I’ve been managing.

Wednesday, I dined on moussaka (mate mate mate) with John and Tina, before enjoying ourselves with Sopranos and House on television. John and I have been trying to get through season 5 of The Sopranos for A G E S and we’re finally making some progress. At this rate, we’ll finish it this year!

Thursday, my broly Wooster came around for home-made pizzas and general silliness. I also built another desk for the bedroom/office, so now I have a workbench which will enable greater productivity in hardware-related fault-finding and fixing.

Today was busy as all get-out. I had an urgent request from Leyton to fix a PC for the cinemas, so that was stage 1. Lara had a busted computer she brought in from home, so that was stage 2. We had a myriad of stupid customers with varyingly-accurate diagnostic assumptions made, so that was the rest of the stages. I pulled apart computers pretty much all morning, and then had a meeting with Caroline (who you may know better as The Barcelona Girl) about Barcelona. The time to leave is fast encroaching, I’ve got a lot to do. I got generally screwed around all afternoon by morons, and then it was time to call it quits for the week. Huzzah!

Tomorrow is the races, which is pretty cool. I have to wash my jeans or I’ll have no pants to wear. Hello ladies.

We had a rather nice win for a change at netball on Monday night. Their team seemed to have had a major mix-up with team organisation so it was like playing a new team.

I had to hand an assignment in on Tuesday, which was a day early because of the public holiday today. There was class scheduled, but I had other tasks to complete, specifically, digging a hole, so I just dropped the assignment and left.

Went and got Daniel, who also helped with labour last time it was required, and we pretty smartly got to digging. We had to dig a new hole to replace a pipe that burst, but the dam thing went underneat a concrete slab, so I had to dig down about a metre, with enough room for a man to squat down inside the hole.

I kinda enjoy labour jobs.

And then this morning, with Cebs, we went and delivered phone books around Carseldine. We had 7 guys, in two cars - a station wagon and a sedan with trailer, so we put a full pallet in the trailer, and 160 or so in the wagon with the back seat down. I was quite surprised how quickly we got it all done - 700 books in 2 and a half hours.

Went and got some grub with the fellas afterwards, which on a public holiday, was quite hard! We went to a pizza place that is a bit cafe-esque, which was closed, then we went looking for eagle boys, which was closed, before finding subway, which was doing a roaring trade, and finishing off with some sweets from the bakery. I bought a caramel slice which was delicious - just delicious.

I’ve now reclined to have a lazy afternoon. I got a bit tricky and hooked up my radio to go through my “line in” port of the computer. Previously, I had to switch around plugs if I wanted to turn the radio off and turn my music on, and vice versa, but now, I just have to press a few buttons on my computer. Much better, and if I really wanted, I could record radio onto my computer.

Hello, my pretties. As another week starts on up, we can take time to reflect upon the week that was.

Most excitingly, Sunday night I was on a focus group for Bundaberg Rum marketing. It was two hours of sitting around, talking about Bundaberg Rum and their ideas for new products. Some were stupid, some were cool - self chilling cans, rum aged in Red Gum casks instead of oak, different blends - it was really interesting, and paid for my fuel this week.

Immediately prior, I attended a Perf PC’s staff bbq at Edward’s place, which was nice. Typical of all barbeques, it was terribly over-catered, but at least it was yummy.

And let’s not even MENTION the Lions. I didn’t see the game, thank goodness, but I heard the final scoreline. Just lame.

Saturday I hit the Ekka with Danielle, and it was great. Exhausting, but great. We caught the train fro my place - which cost $5.80 return each! That’s a lot of money for a stupid train, isn’t it? - and saw heaps of stuff. The wood chop, dog obedience, cows the size of hippos, bulls, pigs, a camel, alpacas, llamas, goats, deer, chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, cats, mice, horses … the works. Also had a good look at the cake-decorating competitions in the art gallery, which was interesting, and the food pavillion, which was great. Tried free samples of practically everything, I bought some fancy cordial and a whizz-bang cheese grater. Oh, and the Woolworths show bag, which is probably the best value bag in the show.

We had our compulsory strawberry icecreams, played some games in side-show alley, and then hit the showbag pavillion. I bought the freddo bag, from which Blacky and I have been taking “lucky dip” freddo draws. So far, Blacky hasn’t got any stupid white chocolate ones, and I have. Lucky dip is stupid.

That’s probably all that’s worth mentioning - Blacky’s off to NZ on Tuesday, so I’ll miss the sounds of throwing up before work that I was treated to this morning. :tongue:

hello bitches,
I’ve been to Lange Park, not impressed with my boys at all. Can’t get over the line. Dragons need some help from Timmy; too shoes. I need sleep because I am going to sheepland tuesday. The Paddo is a good hotel after the game, i am smashed sorry,mick is cool.
Dean is slack for not posting, he will tell youl about the EKKA
yeah, night
peace
-Blacky