It’s gold baby

The situation is getting dire, here. If my paper delivery from Officecentre doesn’t arrive soon, I’ll have to start printing on the third side of my pages, if that is even possible, which it isn’t.

I have to remember the deal with upgrades on Thai, now that I’m a gold frequent flyer. The relevant clauses are thus:

 Complimentary Gold Upgrades

We appreciate that you have made THAI your preferred airline. With our compliments you can enjoy a round-trip upgrade from the original paid class of service, from Economy Class to Royal Silk Class, or from Royal Silk Class to Royal First Class.*

* Gold upgrades are valid on all paid published fares, excluding discounted Economy Class fares in booking classes G/V/W.

I’ve got a return flight to Australia 30/June that physically expires 01/July, so can’t be extended beyond that date. I can move it forward if there’s a reason too, otherwise I guess I’ll come back end June, buy a new visa at the Thai embassy there - 4 months earlier than strictly neccessary - and fly back again. As to what will happen at Christmas I’m not yet sure.

Lara’s birthday tomorrow, so hope you have a good day dude. I sent a bunch of stuff to my Mum to redistribute for birthdays coming up, and your present was amongst that batch. Hope it arrives at M&D’s, and subsequently your place, soon.

Stock Market Game

It’s time to welcome Leyton to the stock market game. He bought in yesterday, and is currently in fourth. Although, he did cause me some extra work, being the first person to buy shares at over a hundred bucks each (RIO), I had to widen the table to account for it. At the moment, I am in front on the game, which I’m pretty pleased about, but I owe my success primarily to QBE and AMP, one of which was a tip from someone else, and one was a pure gamble.

Last night was a seafood celebration at Asian Dean’s house. There were so many prawns that I have leftovers to eat on a sandwich for lunch. I have also perfected a salad that I really like: blue cheese, walnuts, dried cranberries, lettuce and squashed baby tomatos, dressed with EVOO, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. *slurp*

In the interest of seeing what it does to my search-term referrers list, I pose a question: can anyone help my launder some money?

Returning from my recent trip to the USA, I had some spare cash left over that I wanted to change back to baht. However, on one of the $50’s some knucklehead has drawn a mustache in biro.

Now, nobody (of the half-dozen money changers that I tried) will change it for baht. Besides using it when I NEXT go overseas, what can I do with it now? Suggestions welcome, before I try the “leave it overnight in brake fluid” method suggested on a forum I visit.

a HP external DVD writer

Does anyone have a use for a USB HP external DVD writer? I stupidly bought one trying to see if Lightscribe (while cool) could be an alternative to giving out CDs that didn’t autorun in America (it wasn’t).

So if anyone has any ideas for anyone who might want it, drop me a line.

desert panic

More tomorrow, including the desert panic, the mistake in Los Angeles and the incredible flight home.

Well ok then. The desert panic is my favourite story, so I’ll start with that.

After a detour after Las Vegas to check out a place mentioned reasonably extensively on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - the delightfully named “Pahrump, NV”. Unfortunately, it sucked, and I probably could’ve saved myself some time by reading the Wikipedia entry first and sticking to the interstate, but I didn’t, and so became the desert panic.

R&N had lent me their TomTom GPS unit, to use my US map card in. Without it, I would probably be dead by the side of the road, or worse yet, still in Nevada. Although I probably wouldn’t have bothered checking out stupid Pahrump if it weren’t for the GPS safety blanket, so in a classic chicken-or-the-egg scenario, I don’t know which inspired which.

After wanting to get the hell out of Pahrump, I faithfully followed TomTom’s advice on the most direct route, even when a certain National Highway looked like a dirt road. I figured it was just a small section of dirt road, like an “under construction” section, and then it would return to paved. After about 10km, when the road suddenly became a 4WD track, I considered turning back, but didn’t want to go back to Pahrump, or admit that I was wrong. The next 20km, at speeds in excess of 10mph, was slow work, and I kept wondering when outlaws would swoop in on a 4WD and shoot me to steal the car. At one point, TomTom suddenly realized I was 40m off the “road” and directed me to “return to the highlighted route” which pretty much involved just holding the wheel “right” until it said I was back on the track again. I note that there were no visual aids at all to mark the differentiation between “road” and “not road”.

If this happened at night, it would’ve taken MUCH longer. So yeah. Desert panic. Never again will a passing reference in a TV show inspire such a deluded detour.

The mistake I made in Los Angeles was smaller, but more annoying. I returned the rental car early, which then meant I had to physically handle my bags for the 3 hours more before the checkin counters opened. If I kept the car, they could’ve happily stayed in the car without bothering me in the slightest, but I knew best: “return the car, and enjoy the internet in the lounge for longer,” I thought.

And part three: the fabulous flight home, which was long and crap. I did sleep some, however, which made it less painful. I was kinda excited about the stopover in Japan, but we weren’t allowed out of the plane, it was for refuelling and crew change only. Bummer! I slept for a few hours when I got home, and then Mint woke me for lunch. We went to the movies last night and saw Shutter, which was average and kinda stupid, but popcorn solves most movie problems, and it did again.

home again, home again, jiggity-jig

I am this morning arrived back in Bangers.

When I last rapped atcha, I was semi-looking forward to Frank Caliendo/Collective Soul and a day of doing nothing. Isn’t it funny how plans don’t work out?

Instead, I joined Eric and Sally at the Novell reception at the Mariott for free drinks and food with no crowds (which would’ve definately been the case at the big party with the acts) until we drank them dry and they kicked us out, and we migrated to the Mariott bar for more drinks and snacks.

Eric and Sally had friends that joined us, about half way through the free party, and stayed with us at the Mariott until last call, being quite nice guys. Until the bill came, then Mr Order-heaps-of-expensive-beers-and-share-a-plate-of-chicken-wings became My I-only-had-a-couple-of-beers and made an undersized contribution to the bill, around $10. I figure that his drinks alone would’ve been $25+, and that doesn’t count the tip. The other guy, also named Mr Order-heaps-of-expensive-beers-and-share-a-plate-of-chicken-wings threw in $5. I had 5 beers at $4 each, and a $10 burger, so my $40 contribution covered $4 worth of tip, and $6 worth of their shortcomings. Sally had to pick up the rest, which sucked, but I figured that they’re her friends and not really mine, so I was ok with not chipping in further.

When Eric and the two cheapskates kicked on to the Port of Call bar, it gave Sally and I something to bitch about.

I had a nice dinner with Dana at the Olive Garden, and picked up my stuff. She sounds like she’s doing well, which is great. I did some packing and got a pretty early start on the drive to LA. Spent the night in Barstow CA, which is only 2 hours or so from the airport, so that should give you some idea of the seriousness of my drive. It was fun actually, because I had CDs of an audiobook - Tourist Season by Carl Hiassen - which were kinda fun to listen to.

More tomorrow, including the desert panic, the mistake in Los Angeles and the incredible flight home.

Stock market going great!

I’m aware of the irony of having a post with this title follow the last post, but I just don’t care. Today is the last day of Brainshare, and yesterday I got the suprise of my life when my old pal Dids came by my booth with a suprised “Deano!”

He’s working for the evil empire now, still in Canberry. I suggested that we get together for lunch today, so that should be good.

Of our 1100-ish cups, we have 600-ish left, so there’ll be leftovers to give away in future for sure. I’ve got about 50 CDs left, and most of these are sure to find their way into the “trash” (in American parlance) at the end of the show.

Tonight, Frank Caliendo is warming up for Collective Soul at the Energy Solutions Arena. I’m looking forward to sneaking out after Caliendo and taking a personal day tomorrow, maybe coming into Brainshare for the free (well, the included in the price) lunch.

stock market not going well

Everyone’s now below $0 on the stock market game, and with the US having a major scare today on the stock market, we’ll drop further tomorrow. Oh well, lucky it’s just a game right? 
Brainshare’s going ok, althoguh I come to hate it every year, and this year is no exception. Stupid people just looking for free stuff - I mean come on, dudes - the free stuff is crap! Learn from every … single … year!

and now for some pseudo science

I suffer from nosebleeds in dry environments. Well, ’suffer’ is probably an extreme description, perhaps ‘endure’ is better. This includes Salt Lake City, hotel rooms and aeroplanes. But today begins my testing of a new theory: nosebleeds and chapped lips are the same.

So, I have bought some Vaseline “Lip Therapy” gel, and in addition to applying it to my lips, I smear some on my index finger, and apply to the inside of my nose, in a “aren’t kids gross” manner.

I will report back later in the week how the experiment progresses.

Everything about CD labels

So I’ve made a mistake.

The CDs for the show I burnt, have a slight mistake. They don’t autorun.

At first, I thought this was pretty bad, so I looked into alternate solutions for reburning 200 CDs, with my pretty pictures on the front.

Option 1 was Discmakers, but too expensive. So I looked into option 2, which is Lightscribe. LightScribe is an optical disc recording technology that utilizes specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and printable discs, using the existing laser that normally writes the content to write the label.

It’s pretty awesome, but unfortunately too slow. A pretty big picture took about half an hour just to burn the label.

So, I’m going with Option 3: not worrying about the autorun.

In Utah

I am currently in Scipio, Utah. Today I will make the final push into Salt Lake, so I’m almost there.

The getting here went well. For the first time ever, the taxi driver in Bangkok didn’t try to pull something with the taxi meter - either pretending it didn’t work, or waiting until we were en route and then start negotiating for the fare, with the meter off.

I chilled at the lounge, internetting, until realizing the time and getting to the gate asap. I was by now means last, but over 95% of the plane was already onboard.

The flight sucked, as you’d pretty much expect. It’s just so far. The line at customs in the US was painful, and then the line to exit the terminal was also awful. I got the bus to the hotel, which was so full I’d be suprised if it wasn’t bulging at the sides. I had to tip the driver in baht, as I only had $20’s in US dollars. I went to bed without eating, and slept pretty well.

Next morning I checked out, caught the shuttle to the airport, and caught another shuttle to the car rental place. I discovered a great site - hotwire - where you don’t know what company you’re renting from, but it’s well cheaper than anywhere else. Some things, you don’t care about - who cares what car company they rent from? -  but booking a hotel room was a little more anxious. I got really lucky with the hotel, and ended up staying at LAX Radisson for $50 off other online rates, like Wotif, and ended up with a car from Budget at $50 cheaper than I could find elsewhere.

I had breakfast at Denny’s - ah Denny’s, how I love you - and the got underway. My plan was to get as far as St George, but I arrived at St George around 2-3pm, and couldn’t justify stopping that early in the day, so pushed on a little further.

To report on the progress of the stock game, so far Godfrey is leading the pack. Glenn, Blacky and I are below $0, but that could change at any moment …