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Gosford (what a place!) May 14, 2006

Posted by andy in : life , 22 comments

We just moved to Gosford! For those who don’t quite know where that actually is, it’s about an hour’s drive North of Sydney, and about halfway to Newcastle.

This particular decision means that we now have an hour-and-a-half train ride into the big smoke every day: a highly unfortunate turn of events. The payoff? Free rent for five months and we get to live in an actual house with plants and a garage and stuff. We’re house-sitting! It’s something that I highly recommend everybody who’s saving money for a house or a holiday do. Firstly, it’s free. Do you need any more reasons than that?

From my perspective, I just moved to Hicksville, NSW. The place is bizarre, but possibly only because I seem to have become a bit of a lower North-shore snob. The locals in town appear to be, in most ways, crazed and (I AM CONVINCED) at least half of them are completely smashed. Absolutely certifiably drunk. They slur. They stagger. They ramble. They shamble. Even while getting their groceries. Even while selling me groceries. Probably while manufacturing my groceries in the factories around town. They have a mall with Big-W, Best and Less, Lowes and Go-Lo within an exceptionally close proximity of each other. They are a relatively coastal town but seem to have NO SHOPS TO BUY FRESH SEAFOOD! I even asked a local butcher. He just muttered something about that being a great idea for a business and shambled off to his corner. When we went shopping, we were the only people buying fresh fruit and vegetables.

At least, when I leave the country and head to the UK (anyone who wants to offer me a Java job in London - Hibernate, Spring and XP - Thoughtworks?) I’ll have fewer regrets. Sydney was really great to live in, and Canberra likewise. I doubt that I’ll say the same about Gosford.

Did I mention that someone told me that the Central Coast of NSW is the suicide capital of Australia? There’s usually a reason for that kind of statistic…

You won’t believe this… October 30, 2005

Posted by andy in : life , 9 comments

…actually, you will.

Christie decides to clean the kitchen today. Clean as in “Spring-clean”, so it’s everything off the benches wipe things down and so on. She even polishes the kettle. That’s dedication.

After polishing the kettle, she picks up the base to wipe it over, and lets out a little scream. A cockroach runs out from under it. So she does what any self-respecting girl does and calls me over, flapping her arms.

I get out the Mortein, spray it, and it dies. Problem solved. I go back to my study.

A minute later another little squeal. Now she’s whacking the base of the kettle against the sink.

I walk over and look, and there’s cockroach after cockroach falling out of the little plastic base and tumbling into the sink. They’re all sizes, little babies to full adults. I spray them all. Then, we start spraying the base and all hell breaks loose.

Cockroaches are running everywhere. It’s all on and we’re taking no prisoners. The flood becomes a river, becomes a trickle and then stops. Nothing’s moving. We spray until the base is flooded in Mortein and becomes a black pool of cockroach death. Then we flood it with water. Baby cockroaches start floating to the surface. Bodies still, they trickle down the drain. We flood and empty their home until nothing else comes out.

Then we take a look at the toaster…

Charity: The open palm. October 7, 2005

Posted by andy in : life , 6 comments

I’m rather fond of charities and I like donations. On my list of all-time best things ever, I think they’d rank pretty high.

But there was something that kinda irked me, and when I say it, you’re going to think I was nuts.
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Step 3: Profit! September 21, 2005

Posted by andy in : coding, life , 16 comments

The plan is simple.

Step 1: Idea
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit

Here is how I did it…
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Belated birthday pressie!!

Posted by andy in : life, playa , 4 comments

I totally now own (drumroll…..)

dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada…

one of these
nds

Which is great because not only do I get to play that Yoshi game and Mario RIGHT NOW, but I also get to buy Nintendogs tomorrow and Electroplankton when it eventually appears (November?)

Yay!!!

All my spare time September 10, 2005

Posted by andy in : coding, life , 10 comments

…has been going into that screen grab extension.
Honestly!! People are never happy!
Frames, better error handling, why Java, configuration!!!

It’s unbelievable! For a little while I thought frames would elude me (I HATE poring over the DOM trying to find the EXACT element hiding within some esoteric little nothing) but I’ve sorted that now.

Screen grab! 0.5 is out!
You can now grab frames, there is support for French speakers (thank you Jean-Bernard Marcon!!) and I have moved the 3 options for grabbing under a submenu.

To come in 0.6: Better error messages, more locales, (hopefully) a fix for the context menu being snapped on Fedora. Probably some configuration options wouldn’t go astray too.

Things I totally meant to write about… August 28, 2005

Posted by andy in : readings, life , 111 comments

Saw NIN. Absolutely awesome.
I was completely blown away by the raw energy of the whole thing. Mr Reznor was great and the current touring lineup was likewise.
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I don’t know how to drive a truck August 16, 2005

Posted by andy in : life , 8 comments

The thought occurred the other day, as I walked down Mowbray Road toward the train, that there are no manuals available that inform the individual on how best to drive a truck.

What if I needed to drive a truck and I couldn’t do it?

!!

If most of the people on the earth died, and I was one of the last survivors and I NEEDED to drive a truck, what would I do? Teaching myself how to drive a truck could be dangerous. They have a couple of different gear/clutch mechanisms, about 3 different brakes and over a dozen horns, some quite loud.

What if I used the duck horn erroneously and failed to scare the elephant crossing my path? Minced elephant? Or minced truck (and hence trucker-burgers)? Would it make a difference if it were Indian or African? What would it be doing in the Australian outback (what would I be doing in the outback)? Would it know how many friends to call if I asked it to replace a lightbulb?

Manuals! They certainly do save us from a LOT of problems.

Food week. August 2, 2005

Posted by andy in : misc, life, foto , 4 comments

This just looked so nice…. :)
Image(026)

And it was tasty too. It’s just some Perch with Pesto and salad. But man it was good.

Badger badger badger badger

Posted by andy in : misc, life, foto , 18 comments

badger badger badger badger

Image(027)

MUSHROOM!!
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