January 2005 Entries
Heading off to see Terror tonight. Here's the ad:
Friday 28th
Terror (US) with guests Evil Priest & The Warpath
door sales only from 8.30pm $18.00
There's a really weird trend when it comes to advertising hardcore bands in NZ. It seems that whenever the band is from overseas, in this case from the US, the promoters feel obliged to put (US) next to the name of the band. I figure it's because THEY don't know who the hell these bands are, and it's their way of making sure people know it's an international act. It just seems utterly stupid - the people who...
Going out for a meal in Auckland? Perhaps you'd like to check out your destination first, using the Food grading search tool.
It's interesting to note that the Hy Bakery on Karangahape Road now has an "A" rating - I guess that means they finally managed to get rid of the cockroaches!
This article, called Tricks of the Trade is slightly old, but it's very amusing. A snippett from the intro:
For every occupation, there is a catalog of secrets only its employees are aware of—such as how waiters with heavy platters know to look straight ahead, and never down. Armed with a bag of reader mail, Matthew Baldwin unfurls a whole lot more true insider knowledge.
My favorite paragraph is this:
Curiously, I’ve noticed an almost identical aspect in the software development trade. Every year there seems to be a technical whatsit that management recognizes as the sexy-cool new thing but doesn’t really understand....
As I look at the special offer download page, offering limited time downloads of Lotus Notes releases 1, 2 + 3, I'm struck by a few amusing facts.
Firstly, Lotus Notes version 1 is a 2mb download. 2mb - that's utterly insane, the jpg for the splash screen alone on R6 is probably larger than that. Secondly I realise that I still have some old DOS disks kicking about that I could use to test out V1 and V2.
...and finally, I realise that I don't need to download R3, as I still have some actual proper R3 cds kicking about from...
I just picked myself up a Bose SoundDock. After reading about them in T3, I was searching about trying to find a New Zealand distributor. I tried all the Mac stores, all of the NZ chains which sell iPods, and also did a site:co.nz search on google. Finally I rang Bose in Australia and found a stockist - yes, the Bose store about 2 mins from me. Yes, I did feel a bit stupid.
It has a very nice subtle form factor to it, and a pretty good sound quality for something of that size. I wish I had another...
I have a pretty ugly looking signature. In fact, it's less like a signature and more like a squiggle - kind of like I started, and got bored after the first letter - which is actually pretty close to the truth given the sad fact that I can't write more than 1 paragraph without my hand siezing up in some strange arthritic like cramp (but I can type at over 110wpm, go figure). So anyway, I had to chuckle when I came across this page which confirms that it really doesn't matter what I sign.
Well the new Apple kit looks very cool. The Mac Mini is a very clever piece of work which is aimed very directly at disgruntled PC users - the size and style is pretty unbeatable, and letting people use their PC keyboard/mouse/monitor is a nice way to make any transition that much simpler.
The iPod Shuffle is very neat too, and looks like it's going to be quite cheap as well - but I have to say, that item #2 from the notes at the bottom of the page is a little bit worrying:
The site has switched hosts again, and so anyone using the RSS feed will need to update their aggregator to this URL
This is a rather amusing article about seperating gaming from reality. My favorite quote (the game in particular this dude is talking about happens to be Quake 3) is:
"I'd play it, then walk out into the office corridor and realize I was looking at my co-workers as potential targets," said Taylor. "I was so used to killing anything that moved."
I identify with that on so many levels, although while at work it doesn't actually require me to have played hours of Quake beforehand to feel like that.