Half a degree of separation

At 2:30am the temperature was 24.5 degrees and now, at 9:30pm, it's 25.0 degrees.

That might say something interesting about the overnight thermal radiation from the ground here or it could be my (digital) thermometer is broken.

iPod lives !

It's been about 2 years since my old 3rd generation 40 gig iPod played a song. It didn't power up at all and wouldn't even begin charging anymore. My iPod nano is great but it's only 8 gig. Having to delete something every time I add an album gets old real fast.

Deleting all the poker-night playlists off the nano would free up a decent amount of space and using the 40 gig model from the Bose dock will mean I could have up loads of albums on hand instead of just the pick of the bunch.



I picked up a replacement battery for much cheaper than Apple sell them but had to do the installation myself. Even with the supplied tools it took me over 25 minutes to open up the case. Replacing the battery was actually the easy part. Honestly, I didn't expect that when I put everything back together and unlocked it that it would actually work first time. Pleasantly surprised.

Now of course I need to spend a few hours figuring out which albums I'll put on the there.

An easy smoke

After another Sunday of not doing very much at all, it's good to relax on the balcony with a book, a drink and something to fill the lungs.

Since I'd not properly looked after my humidor for about 2 years, most of the cigars I had in there were what might charitably be described as a bit on the dry side. However, there were a couple that still felt ok and smelt fine. I cut myself a Hoyo de Monterrey - Edición Limitada (2004) and settled on the deckchair with a glass of Glenn Ord. I wish I'd bought a box of these back when I had spare cash!

Downside is that after 24 hours and multiple brushing, I can still taste the cigar. I've never had an aftertaste last this long. Good job it's not entirely unpleasant.

Ahhhh, cheese - part 3

Kapati Smoked Creamy Havarti - Ugh, like eating sweaty socks.

Livingstone Gold - A little bit like a mild Leicester.

Aged Airedale - Meh, it's ok to nibble on. Nothing special.

Ahhhh, cheese - part 2

Waimata Blue - Every 6 months or so I forget that I hate blue cheese and buy a 100 grams or so. All blue cheese tases like moldy socks and this one was no exception.

Farmhouse Wedge - Totall boring. It tasted like, well, cheese. Think of Cheese and Onion chips, take away the onion, and the chips, you've got this cheese.

Kapati Aged Cheddar - Here's some free advice for cheesemakers. If you have a shitty cheese, wraping it in wax isn't going to make it taste any better.

Ferndale Brie - Not really runny enough for me to give this high marks. Save it for close to the use-by date and it's not bad.

Ahhhh, cheese - part 1

Port-Salut, my new favourite cheese. Just the right amount of softness and a smooth, almost smokey flavour. Fantastic sandwiched between a couple thin wafers.


Halloumi, a decent cheese to snack on by itself. It's got a lingering flavour, almost an aftertaste which is suprisingly plesant.


English Leicester, after trying a couple of "new" cheeses I though I'd give something a tad more traditional a try. While not very appealing to nibble on its own, this did make a fine topping on a grilled cheese sandwich.


Now that my stomach has had it's bacteria quota filled for the next 2 months, I think I need to lie down for a few hours and let it all settle.

Culling the crap

I used to listen to a lot of podcasts while playing video games and generally just messing about. These days my ears are busy with other things so I decided to trim the list of podcasts I'm subscribed to.

Stuff that didn't make the cut:

• Tips from the top floor - The host of this is just too annoyingly perky
• The Dawn and Drew Show - Far to much "oh aren't we wonderful"
• Nobody likes Onions - Patrick continually saying "podcast" in a stupid voice was the last straw. What retard would think that shit is actually funny?
• Diggnation - I watch the video version now so don't bother with the audio-only version
• Ask a Ninja - Video podcast which was just ... lame

Of course since I was editing my list anyway I checked the iTunes podcast list to see if there was anything new that I might be interested in. So, short story shorter, these got added to my list:

Strong Bad Email
Scientific American Podcast
The Onion Radio News

Since these are relatively short when compared with what I deleted I think I still came out a winner.

If only culling my TV show list was as easy.

Background noise? What background noise?

So ... I'm about to fly to Perth once again and am not looking forward to it; damn you 7 hours in economy class. Last time I did this I bought along my PSP and a movie or two to watch; Damn you crappy airline movies. Problem was that the PSP doesn't exactly have a decently amplified audio signal and airplanes are loud. Very loud. I had great difficulty enjoying "Be Cool", although I can only partially blame the environment for this.

So ... I'm about to head off to my departure gate when I decide to check out the duty free stores in the hope they might have some nifty electronic toy I never realized that I couldn't live without. It wasn't looking good until suddenly they jumped out at me - a set of noise reduction headphones. Hell yeah, that sounds like just what I need. Sure they were about $120 (duty free price) and it meant I didn't have an excuse not to buy a UMD movie (I got "Hitch") but the promise of flying without a constant drone in my ears was something I couldn't pass up.

They needed an AA battery, which wasn't supplied, to power the canceling feature and once I had that sorted out they worked pretty damn well. There was still a mild hum but I could hear the movie perfectly. It apparently only works on low frequency noise and so I could still hear the serving wenches ask me if I needed another drink - very handy feature. Apparently a single battery lasts for about 15 hours so I wore them for the whole flight, even when not watching a movie. Not exactly peace and quiet but better than what I'm used to. I hope Perth Duty-Free has a decent selection of UMD movies. I really wish I'd got it together to rip some DVDs onto memory sticks before I left. Have to remember that for next time.

Anyway, I do a fair bit of flying about the place so I think these were well worth the cost. Now if I could just get an upgrade to business class ...

King Kong in Gold Class

So I thought I may as well go and see King Kong. I'd never tried the Gold Class seats before and since the movie runs for about four hundred hours, decent seating sounded like a good idea. By the end of a regular two hour movie, the usual nasty theatre seats start to feel like concrete.

Friday night Gold Class seats run $35 a pop which, while a lot more expensive than regular seats isn't all that expensive and I did wonder how the cinema could turn a profit at that price. There were only 30 seats in the theatre and it was less than half full when we went there.
Food and Booze baby, that's how they do it. Being able to have a 'proper' drink before going into the theatre made it feel a little like home. I don't have reclining armchairs with built in footrests at home though. I scheduled a food delivery half way through the movie also. Minions bringing me goodies just when I need it, yeah. I spent way more on food and drink than the tickets cost.

Anyway, King Kong. Yeah it was ok but geez, some of those special effects looked like bollocks. Green screen shots stuck out like sore thumbs and when Kong was running about with Ann in his hand, she looked like a Barbie Doll. By that I mean she was all fixed in position, arms locked, head not moving, etc. Suspension of disbelief; pulled me right out of it.

Did the movie really need to be so long? I don't think so. Some of the fighting on Skull Island went on for far longer than was necessary and I'm not just saying that because our food arrived as the bugs and squishy monsters started slithering all over the protagonists. Too many times I was thinking to myself "just get on with it".

If there is some movie I really want to see, I think I'll do the Gold Class thing again. Only problem is next time I go to a regular theatre, I'll feel like I'm missing out.

Batteries

I was looking far too much like a dirty hippie so I went into town to get a haircut. I came home with a Robosapien, as you do.

Now hundreds of years ago when I was a wee laddie, every toy purchased required you to purchase batteries as well. The people who made "Batteries not included" stickers must have made a fortune. Then somebody must have smartened up and decided that actually opening a present and being able to immediately use it was a good thing. Everything comes with batteries included now. Everything.

Nobody told the people who make Robosapien.

6 D cells needed to give the body of the thing. 3 AAA cells needed for the remote and 4 more AAA cells needed to drive the things "brain". None of these were supplied.

That pisses me off. I spend far too much money on this thing and it doesn't even work without having to fork over more cash for batteries.

It's a cool toy and all but now I wish I had two so I could make them fight.


From the manual: "Rechargable batteries are only to be charged under adult supervision". WTF? I can just see it now - some poor bugger is going to read that and spend the next 8 hours watching his batteries charge.

Rain and Sunshine

I've been looking forward to today, hoping for sunshine; Grace was going to be taken to the Zoo for the first time and I'm a big fan of Zoos everwhere. Auckland Zoo has armies of monkies and thingies, what could be more fun?

Rain for most of the week got my hopes up that perhaps Saturday would be clear. Oh, this is Auckland. Not gonna happen. That pisses me of far more than it should.


All the rain and ruined plans still can't wipe the happy from my face.

Podcast review: Warcraft World

Warcraft World
Description: "Warcraft World" Yeah, that's the complete description the show has on iTunes.
Host: Elliot

The presenter of this podcast has such a terrible voice that although I'm a huge fan of World of Warcraft, I just had to unsubscribe from his feed. If you can handle "Ummm" and "Ahhhh" liberally sprinkled through your podcast feeds and are a WoW fan, you might enjoy this. I doubt it though.

I get the impression that although the guy is enough of a WoW fan to start a podcast about it, he doesn't really know a whole lot about the game. He had a guest who was a self proclaimed Auction House guru. Frankly the guy didn't know shit - "buy low sell high", wow really? How about talking about mods to help your auction house experience? How about mentioning some sites that'll give you an idea about realistic prices for good you may want to auction?. If the host thought this guest knew his stuff, obviously he's even slower than his guest.

Before that he'd talked a bit about hunters and their pets. Now the first of my WoW characters to get to level 60 was a hunter and I can say with some small amount of authority that the guy was full of shit.

The last episode I listened to was "VOIPs Reviewed". This episode was even worse than usual. He played a MP3 sent in by a listener but the recording was completely fucked up, he blamed excess compression, and it sounded like it was done under water and then slowed down by 30%. If I was hosting that show, I'd not have played that clip. Ask the guy to rerecord it properly or something for fucks sake. Don't subject your listeners to almost 10 minutes of really bad sound.

If you want a dedicated WoW podcast, check out World of Warcast instead.

PSP Game: Lumines

After voting last weekend I went downtown for a browse. Browsing a game shop with no intention to buy anything a couple of PSP puzzle games caught my eye. Lumines and another one whose name I forget - something about silver blobs or something. Well anyway, it turns out the other one wasn't actually released yet so I could only get Lumines. In order to save cash I just need to stay away from game/tech store. All the best intentions in the world won't stop me buying something if the moment grabs me.

Lumines is basically Tetris but all falling blocks are a 2x2 square where each cell could be one of two colors. Make a 2x2 or larger square of the same color and that square will disappear causing blocks above to fall down. Simple really. Apparently.

I played it for a few minutes and thought it was pretty lame. The manual was supremely unhelpful on how to actually play the game properly. The little slip of paper inside the box basically just told me how to insert the disk into the PSP. $90 wasted.

I went back to it later and figured out some more details. While playing with it in bed, actually less rude than it sounds, I found some more features. Next thing it was about 2am and my thumbs were about to fall off. I'm hooked; kinda like my thumbs.

The "vs CPU mode" is still kicking my arse but I've got the "1 player mode" down pretty well. The music really fits the game and some songs actually change as you move the blocks round. That shows just how random techo music really is. If you can randomly press buttons and still get a music track out of it, how hard can being a techno producer really be?

I played a single 1P mode game for about 50 minutes non stop before I knew how to get decent scores - so only got about 40,000 points. Now that I'm trying for big scores a 50 minute game seems like an imposibility.

I'm stuck in the puzzle mode needing to make a 4x4 square but that's ok, I'll get it done one day.


I wonder if I should try to find that silver blob game on the internet somewhere.

Podcast review: this WEEK in TECH

this WEEK in TECH
Description: Your first podcast of the week is the last word in tech. Join Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, John C. Dvorak, and other tech luminaries in a roundtable discussion of the latest trends in high tech. Winner of People's Choice Podcast and Best Technology Podcast in the 2005 People's Choice Podcast Awards.
Host: Leo Laporte runs the show and others mentioned above help out.

The number one podcast on the whole interweb right now and deservedly so.

I listen to most podcasts as background noise; something might grab my attention and I'll turn it up, maybe rewind a bit, whatever. With TWiT I pay attention for the whole show. Sure these guys talk about what's happened lately in the world of technology and I already have a few podcasts on my list that do that. It's just that these guys bring a level of personality and professionalism to their podcast making them shine above all the others. Hardly surprising since Leo won an Emmy for his work on The Site.

Tech stuff that doesn't even approach being nerdy. Love it.

As of when I'm writing this, Leo Laporte has about five podcasts in the iTunes top 100 list right now. There is a reason for this.

Subscribe now.

That is all.

Michael Moore Hates America

I just finished watching Michael Moore Hates America and I gotta say I'm pretty disappointed. I was hopeful that it'd give some details about how Michael Moore's films are distorted but in fact it was pretty lightweight stuff that barely scratched the surface of Moore's manipulations. If you're interested in how Moore bends the truth and outright lies in his movies/books take a look at the Moore Exposed site instead of watching this film.

Yes, if you had only seen the films "Roger & Me", "Bowling for Columbine" or "Fahrenheit 9/11" and not read any of the commentary on them, then MMHA would enlighten you a little on the deceits Michael Moore imposes but I was looking for something a little more. I'm just fussy that way I guess. I did like the segment where the bank staff from Bowling for Columbine were interviewed - the same bank staff who gave Moore a gun when he opened a new back account. I'd read that all was not as it appeared on BfC but the interview did manage to convey exactly how Moore manipulated the bank staff so he could get the footage he wanted. If you really thought you could have walked into that bank and walked out again with a gun then, you'd be sorely disappointed.

There were other things wrong with the film as well as the lack of any real depth. The incredibly shoddy camera-work, for example, was just a distraction. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, I doubt it was, but it gave the impression that this was amateur hour all through the movie. The filmmaker, Michael Wilson, was forever stressing that his film was trying not to use the same traps that Moore uses and that's noble and all but you don't need to keep reminding the viewer of it.

I somehow managed to get the "Family Friendly Version", a screwup on Amazon's part I believe, so there are parts of some interviews bleeped out. Penn Jillette for example, gets his fair share of the bleep. This is annoying. When a Canadian dude with a number of large facial piercing was being bleeped, it left the impression that since Michael Moore loves Canada so much, Michael Wilson was trying to show how nasty they were. Cheap shot.

I wish I'd watched "Hey... Stop Stabbing Me" instead.