iPod Nano

Well, last week I finally broke down and bought an iPod. I bought the Nano style due to the cost and projected use (oops work vocabulary slipping in). I have been exercising lately and as anyone knows if you are not really playing sport it is quite monotonous. I have been riding an exercise bike and it seems like every second drags for a minute, so by adding music I am hoping to remove this effect. It does work and my workout productivity seems to have improved.

One thing I can’t get over is how small the iPod is. I was expecting it to be a bit bigger than my phone yet was surprised it is smaller than the phone. It can store 1000 songs and playback is for 22 hours. It has a little video screen for when I download the UEFA Champions League Vodcast (Don’t think about the Liverpool Besiktas game). I am not a big fan of iTunes and unfortunately you need the latest version too I am limited to uploading songs from work yet I find it is a great thing to have. I am just going to make sure that I don't use it while walking in NYC.

Kung fu and fashion

This is the reason why kung fu and fashion should not mix.

Radio Wisdom

I heard on the radio today a surefire way to lose weight.

When you drink coffee use low fat milk, and to give it taste add cream and chocolate.

Strange Days

No this post will not be about the Doors song or the movie. More about an interesting 12 hours. Last night I was suffering from insomnia, once again, and I couldn't sleep. I thought that the bed was too hard and it was keeping me awake. I am currently using an air mattress, waiting for the credit card to go down a bit before making the plunge to real furniture. Eventually I fell asleep and when I woke up in the morning I found that the bed had deflated. I recall that some of my last thoughts were taking some air out of the mattress to make it a bit softer, and I wonder did I do this while I was sleeping.

Well I prepared to go to work and arrive in the lift and the last person in is someone I am currently working with. With a formal work related greeting asking me if I had seen a report, I then listened for 10 minutes as I was told how to proceed with my tasks, his way (he was offering advice while later that day my boss liked what I had done). Now this is not a bad thing per se, just that I realised that I wasn't aloud to talk through this lecture.

Then I went to boil water for my coffee and then had a similar conversation with my boss, on a different topic. I was starting to become irritated as I wanted to sit down and drink my coffee. I had been at work for about 20 minutes and yet to taste the much wanted coffee. I WAS LONGING FOR MY COFFEE. I was starting to think about going postal.

All's well, that ends well. Finally, I got to sit down and enjoy my coffee. And today, much inspired by a quote I read recently I am going to look for the book A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. I had heard about James Joyce while drinking at Sheridan's in HCMC and had been curious about what his writing would be like and I am eagerly anticpating reading some of this tonight. Also I will see if I can find a book called Blink.

Someone notices

I have been working at CSES now for about two months on a project for the SEEK employment index. Essentially my role was to write programs to analyse the number of applications and number of advertised jobs and pass them onto my supervisor. It was a frustrating experience writing the code and organising the data so that it runs right. I was satisfied when on Monday this week I had finally finished that project.

That night though I actually wondered if anybody besides my boss ever read the report that is produced each month. I started to think that in general, the more you get paid the less impact your work has. As a teacher at AGU I wasn’t paid much yet it was bang for buck for those I worked with – students, staff, and community people.

Here in Australia, we have a lot of people paid good salaries and it appears that not much is really done. Although people produce work it is not as obvious as it was at AGU or work in a restaurant or on a construction site. So I was surprised today when I opened the newspaper and saw a reference to the SEEK EI report. I was proud that some of the work I did possibly benefited some people and made it into the press.

The project that I am currently working on is one on climate change. I hope that this will also have some impact. The impact is getting a lot of money for our centre and to run lots models – and running the models is my thing.

Kenny

When one of the first lines in a movie is “Is there any Indonesian or curries being served?” and it is about corporate toilet blocks, it gets my attention. Recently I had the pleasure to watch such a movie, Kenny. I was amazed at how close this film got to being a documentary yet still maintaining the fictional story. I found that there were enough laughs and little chuckles to go throughout the whole movie. I have attached the trailer for your enjoyment and if you get the chance I would recommend that you watch it.

Retired

After watching some videos on You Tube using Adobe Illustrator, I have been playing around with my copy. The videos made it look so easy, and at times manipulating the artwork was quite frustrating. Other times I was inspired.

Since I was no longer far from the Great Southern Land, I thought it might be good to update the logo. I had a discussion with Tyler for some names and the best we came up with was Standing on the Great Southern Land. I didn’t think that was that good so I let the unconscious run wild and came up with Under the Southern Cross. I know you can be under the Southern Cross (Crux if you’re an astrologist) on many continents, yet is has quite a symbolic meaning in Australia, check the flag.

I had this picture of Melbourne looking westwards from the Rialto Tower at night and thought that would make a good backdrop for my new logo. I sat at home and designed a little sketch of what I wanted on paper and then tried to illustrate it. As I was working through on the computer I could see what I wanted was not going to work out so I changed it midway through and came upon the design that you now see.

I had a bit of luck though. With the font I used a brush tool write the characters and then accidentally clicked another button and saw that the font turned out better that way. I was impressed so I left it that way and added it the backdrop. After lots of messing around I finished and it is time to hang up the old logo and add the new.

Officially out of service for a while

Welcome to the team

Bonded!

A while ago while Tyler, Hendrik, and I where still in Long Xuyen we challenged Tyler's Photoshop skills. We asked him to make some photos of people. I got James Bonded. I came across that photo today and thought I might share it with the world. It brings back a lot of good memories, about partying in the ER in LX.

As I stand now, while it was possible to be that popular with the girls in Vietnam, it ain't happening to me here yet!

Football Capital = Melbourne

It has been a good year for Victorian football teams this year. In the rugby league this year the Melbourne Storm won, beating the Manly Sea Eagles. I was on my way to watch it, yet the heavens opened and I didn’t feel like going to walk through the rain. I took the rain as a good omen, and thought the storm would win, not only because they were the best NRL team throughout the year. The Melbourne Victory (soccer) also won this week after 6 games, yet they are undefeated.

Yet more importantly for Victorians was the AFL grand final. In Melbourne, I have found if you know nothing about this game then there is nothing to talk about. I think it is crazy. I have been keeping tabs on the results so I don’t look like a complete fool when the topic comes up, except when asked to rattle off 5 players from a team. Well the grand final was between Geelong (Victorian) and Port Adelaide (South Australian). There is rivalry between these states like that between Queensland and New South Wales. All week there was nothing else happening in the world, and in Melbourne it was important that Geelong wins, since a Victorian team has not won for over 5 years.

How crazy people get for the AFL

I noticed how everyone thought Geelong would win, yet I was thinking that this might not be the case. Port looked good all season and beat them a few weeks before the finals. I wanted Geelong to be victorious only because it was the lesser of the two evils, since Geelong is not really Melbourne.

I went to watch the game at my Dad’s house in Rosedale, and it was easy to watch as that was all that was on TV. As the game started Geelong looked good, and stayed good throughout the game. By half time you wondered if Port even showed up. I was relishing in their defeat, as Port has to be the team I hate most, or equal with Adelaide.

According to trivia, the final score was quite symbolic – 24 goals (6 points each) and 19 points for a total of 163 versus 6 goals, 8 points totalling 44. 163 is linked to the year Geelong last won the premiership in 1963, Port’s score of 44 years is the length of the wait for the premiership, and 24 and 19 are jumper numbers of the players on the roster who missed out on a flag this year.

Lastly, I found it interesting that now that the football season is over people will have to fill the void somehow, so some physiologists think that office chat will turn nasty. Great! Let the gossip begin.