Ok douchebags.

This email confirms that you have paid BSHS Ten Year Reunion $60.00 AUD using PayPal.
This credit card transaction will appear on your bill as “PAYPAL *BSHSTENYEAR”.

As Bek said to me when she advised that she’d booked: “you better not leave me hanging”

I’m busy, bored and a bit hungry. Last night was a rescheduled “family night” at mum and dad’s, and chicken custard was on the menu … fantastic, I looove mum’s chicken custard. (note for those reading this for the first time, it’s not actually custard … it’s some famous chicken dish, like “chicken a la king” or something, but it looks like custard with pieces of chicken in it. hence the name).

Got my backpack from Woo, so now I even look like a hardcore traveller. I screwed around for ages last night tightening and loosening straps. I’m a certified menace.

Anyone else mis-read this when they read it the first time?
So far, three out of three people shown this have mis-read it.

There’s a couple of reasons why my updates have been missing for the past few days.

The first is that my internet got “shaped” earlier this week. Apparently, my downloads were deemed excessive under the terms of Cyberone’s Acceptable Use Policy. According with the AUP they reserve the right to slow down user’s download rate if usage is considered to be excessive and adversely impact on network performance.

That seems vague to me, but whatever. 56,877.38MB is around 60Gb. I can get 40Gb on ADSL2 on iiNet for $130/month, or bundled with a VoIP server, 60Gb. Internode and Vintek has 80Gb for $120 per month, 90Gb for $140. It’s a pretty easy case to avoid renewing with Cyberone when my contract is due for renewal in November.

The second reason is the crap in Thailand, and the rerouting of my flights to avoid it.

This was a drama beyond all reckoning. It cost around about $3K to get on Emirates flights that *sort of* meet my requirements.
Flight details are written here for easy reference:
27-Sep-06 dep 20:05 BNE arr 06:00 DBX (via Singapore)
28-Sep-06 dep 08:35 DBX arr 13:00 MUC
18-Oct-06 dep 21:50 PAR arr 06:30 DBX
19-Oct-06 dep 08:45 DBX arr 06:35 BNE (via Singapore)

Those familiar with my other travel plans will note that I’m also arriving a day earlier than intended in Munich, which is both great and crap, because it cost another $350 for a hotel room that night, but it’s another day to enjoy the Oktoberfest, so …

The hassle of all this (and the hassle of sending my booth and equipment via FedEx) completely wore me out Wednesday, and I fell asleep at around 7pm. Unfortunately, I was up again, bright as a button at around midnight, so it was a mixed blessing. I had dinner at the Pancake Parlour in town at around 2am, and it was pretty good. It’s one of the few places open 24 hours in this sleepy town. Anyone else know any others?

Well my little gumdrops, I made quite the realization yesterday. At a certain point, the amount of washing you have to do defies the mind - you could almost do load after load of washing, and never get it done. That’s where I was at yesterday, and so yesterday evening, I went (for the first time whilst in Australia) to a laundromat.

Such excitement, although they’re not like they are overseas. In New York, I checked my emails from a laundromat. In Vegas, I gambled while I washed. In LA, I ate pizza and watched the beautiful people. In Brisbane … there aren’t even seats in the laundromat.

Anyway, it was … liberating. Get this for an itinerary:
I unfitted queen sheet, 2 fitted queen sheets, 8 pillow cases, 8 pairs shorts, 1 pair long pants, 1 long-sleeve shirt, 2 hawaiian shirts, 1 pajama bottom, 3 pajama shirts, 15 shirts, 8 pairs jocks, 4 pairs socks, 1 handkerchief, 14 towels, 1 bathmat, 2 face washers and 2 hand-towels.
It took 4 x 8kg washing machines to wash, and 12 x 8 minute dryer cycles, spread across three massive dryers. Each wash was $4, each drying cycle was $1. Total cost of the wash: $28. Total time: 1hr, 15 minutes. Worth every cent, and worth every minute. Thanks to Mum for coming along for the ride and knitting while I read the junkmail.

I had a super wierd dream last night. The setting was Samios foods - the deli down the road from my place, but it had less stuff and a more family aspect - it was almost run from the front of house. I went in to buy some cheese and baklava and you’ll never guess who was in there, playing with one of the owner’s kids … Eric Clapton. We joked around a bit, and I pretended I didn’t recognize him, until as I left I called out, “good luck on Tuesday!”

If ever there was a sign that I’m destined to go to this concert, that was it.

Not a bad weekend, really, NOT AT ALL.
I started off with a slack day on Friday, made pasta for lunch with Leyts. Saturday Joseph came over to look at a project I’ve been wanting to do for a while on my balcony, involving stainless steel cable. And Saturday night, a fun bbq at Rob B’s place, at which I got thoroughly **SMASHED** and then didn’t make it going out afterwards. I was keen as mustard to hit the town in a big way, but by the time I got home I realized (everyone else realized it long, long ago) that I wasn’t in any condition to do anything besides go directly to bed.

Sunday was pretty merciful - I didn’t suffer too badly, but I definately needed real coffee and a greasy breakfast, so I spent some time at the Coffee Club at West End, reading the paper, and doing what I needed to do to get through the day. I worked that afternoon, and here I am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

My grandpa, Bernard, better known by everyone as Tim, is known as “Boy” to those of his own age group.

His sister (in-law? not sure about that part) Cath lives a couple of doors down with her husband, Des. Cath got a call from a mutual friend of my grandpa asking if she knew where Tim was, as they’d been ringing all day with no answer. Cath walked down a few houses to find grandpa’s house open and empty.

As she moved through the house, calling out to him, she eventually saw him, sitting upright and still as a moonlit pond, in the driver’s seat of his car.

Cath freaked out, and ran home to tell Des of her terrible discovery. Des came back with her, for moral support, and (almost as an afterthought) shouted into the car, “You alright, Boy?” Both Des and Cath got the fright of their lives when my grandpa opened his eyes, shocked awake from a deep sleep, induced by reading through the boredom of a car manual. Learn from this people: read your car manuals in bed, where people expect to find you not moving.

Leyton rambled away in an email at 5am:

well they do a good job I will give them that.

thinner nano? I was sure when I bought mine they wouldnt get any smaller. Not too much of a concern for me though - especially the bigger sizes as I don’t fill mine now. amazing how they release something that is smaller… bigger memory… brighter screen and yet longer battery life… I note though that it takes 90 mins just to charge to 80% :S that’s a long time… Not sure if it needs a 40% boost in brightness either. The thing is blinding as it is.

I like how things are available straight away from apple - the store isnt updated yet so I haven’t see the new products. Following engadget (which was flooded) and the live text feed on ilounge.

shuffle - smallest ever mp3 player… hmm I am sure that is a claim that would take some living up to. Maybe smallest ever manufactured by a brand you have heard from and is available widely…

new games.. spose thats ok - i get sore thumb just scrolling through songs, going to be limited what you can do on a scroll wheel though some will be fun. Only useful if they are crackable
new earphones - yay, they still look crap. probably 2 hours before you stop using them and buy others unlike the 1 hour for the current pairs.

Bigger ipod video - you’ll like that ben. same price too. Once again, bigger, brighter and 75% more battery life. I guess they needed that as the old one might have struggled to get to the end of a movie..

Movies on itunes… booooring, someone should tell Jobs you can get em free on bittorrent. 640×480 “almost dvd quality” or “not even a quarter the quality of HDTV” or “bigger than the tiny ipod video screen can handle anyway”

Gapless playback.. not sure exactly what they mean but can’t remember being too annoyed at any gaps on the nano lately..

New itunes - no surprise, once again woopee. Unless this one takes about half the memory to load as the previous its still bloated crapware. New itunes store is even less appealing - nothing free there, that’s just not internet As long as itunes still has the disable itunes store check box. Once again the re-design will probably be eye candy like the new cover art they talk about which is always welcome. oh and NFL 2006 season!!!1!1!1

Syncing between computers on the ipod is finally going to happen. Syncing to itunes server would also make my Thecus much better….

iTV is intesting - not bad for US $299. I think in its released form it will be powerful, small, cheap, but crippled by apple crap. Great if you want to watch the latest paid for downloaded dvd which will follow the Australian dvd release schedule and take about 3 hours on Australian internet. Crap if you want to just play your divx’s off a network drive like most people who aren’t gadget-phobes. Hopefully people will hack it to run a proper operating system - won’t be as pretty but wont try to sell you anything and will actually allow you to watch what you want (NFL 2006!!!!1!1!!!!) Sure it might be HDTV ready but thats just going to make the 640×480 movies people buy looks like ass, well pixelated ass. Of course you will be able to play whatever quicktime high def files you want on it, like.. um.. I suppose with 802.11G you can probably only stream a max of 640×480 - it doesnt have the bandwidth to cope with high def.

Q1 2007 release - miss Christmas and compete with peoples dollars for vista.

Apple store just came up
New nanos look crappy in the picures - like a small thin ipod mini. much prefer the old nano for looks anyway. I like the exclusivity of the black colour to the 8gb though.

No macbook core duo tim m they have an apple certified section with refurbs though - macbook pro?
http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wo/StoreReentry.wo?family=certified
Mind you some of the “bargain” refurbs are dubious - Ipod Mini 4GB for $229 anyone? Come on! it’s mini! that means small!

For the record Ben the education price on the 80GB video ipod is… $499 (I guess they haven’t updated the education pricing on their shop yet)

I note the new ipod nano says as a requirement: Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later - Tim M does that mean all your old versions of the mac operating systems can’t be used? s2bthem

Blacky wants me to shoutout if anyone is interested in the Valley Fiesta this weekend. Friday night is Regurgitator. Contact Blacky for more details, I won’t be able to make it.

Good yet busy weekend. Highlight for me was SLC at Brek’s. Fantastic day out.

What a handsome bunch.

Guess what I’m doing tonight. Go on, guess.

Did you guess having dinner with Dave Cook, formerly of the army, now unemployed civillian? If so, you’re correct. Well done.

I don’t know if SLC has enough justification to be on this weekend, but I’m open to suggestions. Tomorrow is voting day, and then apparently something at Rob B’s place to celebrate his temporary homecoming.

What the hell is going on? Is it the National Homecoming Day for in-the-closet homos, and why didn’t Leyton get the memo?

My friends, I have a problem.

As many of you know, I am planning on spending a goodly amount of time in the USA early next year. There’s a conference worth attending in Texas Jan21-Jan24, one in Michigan Jan31 - Feb01, and the big one Mar18-23 in Salt Lake, so my tentative dates are January 17th to April 11th.

There’s a couple of big problems with this though.

Firstly, it has been my life-long dream to see Eric Clapton live. Clapton hasn’t toured Australia in 17 years, and Brisbane shows are 6th and 7th February only. Australasia marks the end of the tour (starting in NZ 27-Jan), he’s currently in the US, and will be touring Japan in November. There are front row seats on ebay for one of the Brisbane dates for $950 for the pair.

The way I see it, to do the conferences AND see the show, I either need to see it in Japan at the end of the year, or fly back from the States in February. It’s also my birthday in February, so it would be nice to spend it with friends back home if possible.

One business class fare to the US is expensive, two is ridiculous. I could skip the conferences at the start of the year, but seeing as I wanted to go earlier in the year to get a jump on things before the show, it’s a wasted opportunity.

What should I do?