Time's 50 significant SF Novels?
It appears not. This Page appears to be the real origin of the list. It certainly predates 2006. Looking back on the long trail of blogs it is hard to see where the attribution changed. But there you go, Time Magazine is not resonsible.

Edited by author 17-11-2006 19:03
Time's 50 significant SF Novels
Found via John Samuel's livejournal.
The most significant SF/F novels from 1953-2006 according to Time. Bold the ones you have read, strike through the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert *
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin *
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr *
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
16. Cities in Flight, James Blish *
17. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
18. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
19. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
20. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
21. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
22. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
23. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card *
24. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
25. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman *
26. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
27. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
28. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams *
29. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
30. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
31. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
32. Little, Big, John Crowley
33. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny *
34. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
35. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
36. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
37. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith *
38. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
39. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
40. Ringworld, Larry Niven *
41. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
42. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
43. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
44. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson *
45. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
46. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
47. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
48. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock *
49. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
50. Timescape, Gregory Benford
51. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Hmmm ... some of those I read so long ago that I can't remember If I liked them. Feh! Old age lurking by the door I guess.

Moving on
Yesterday I submitted my resignation at Unisys West. I'm off to work at DDI Health in 4 weeks time. My new position will be Config and Release Manager. This is the work I was doing back at ADI. DDI is a .NET house builing medical related systems (Radiology imaging, Practice management, etc).

The office is located in Colin St. West Perth about a kilometer down the road from Maureen 8-).

The Northbridge Hotel
Ohhh it has changed. It has now gone all upmarket. The dining room on the corner is the 201 restaurant in the evenings. The hotel back looks like a pile of architecture with multiple split levels of accomidation. Most of the people coming down to breakfast seemed to be young couples. Obviously out for a spree.

Ah, the Northbridge Hotel - scene of many a good Wednesday night drinkie and nosh. It was a gay bar in those days and they did a lot of fundraising for AIDS charities, doing food runs to people who couldn't cook for themselves any more, that sort of thing.

They also hosted the monthly leather boys soiree in the dungeon - the sight of bin liners on the walls and floors gave even my most hard-core mates pause.

Swancon XXXI - Saturday
The morning started with a trip into Northbridge to find a chemist and have breakfast. This I managed after walking all the way down to James Street. I came back via Lake Street admiring the architecture and sussing out the Northbridge Hotel.
Then a chat with Rob and Leece and off to Kaneda's Coffee panel. Kaneda is obviously passionate about his job but the 'perfect' coffee still tasted bitter to me. I wimped out of that one early and sat in a comfy chair for a while before going to "Why don't they make Australian SF films?". After that was "Trailer park: forthcoming movies". Then I had lunch with Andrew Harvey and did some catching up for 28 years of news and gossip.
After lunch ... I'm not sure if I got to Ippongi Bang's GOH speech. No wait ... I think I did. Then was the choice beteen three items that I wanted to see running simultaneously. I opted for Ian Tregonning's talk about puppeteering for the movie Labyrinth. Then I had a short visit to the games room and before heading off to the costuming panel. And finally "Fantastic Britannica" before dinner. Dinner was ... something? I chatted with various SCA people as they arrived to set up for a dance demo. Then there was the attempt to see Mirrormask. The time was shifted an hour earlier on the schedule and then another half an hour earlier un-announced. Then due to complaints they re-ran it. So I saw the second half and then the first half. Recommended. By this time the masquerade proper was over and I had missed the dance demo. So I hung around for Ippongi's concert and "Larry & Misty's Bedtime Stories". About 01:00 I staggered back to my room.

Swancon XXX1 - Friday
I packed the tailbox of the trike with my gear for the weekend and went off to work Friday morning. At the end of the day I pedalled onwards into Northbridge. My planned route down Robinson street was scotched when I found that the portion east of William street had been converted to west-bound one-way. The opposite direction to what I wanted. After touring some backstreets an negotiating a breatalyzer trap I eventually made it to the Shiralee Hostel. The single room was clean, fairly new, and somewhat spartan. I unpacked and headed off to the convention hotel. After registration and a quick check of the programme I headed up to Rob & Leece's room. Rob, Leece, and Poss were present and waiting to do their Saturday night viewing. We ordered food from room service and watched an episode of Kolchak while we waited for it to arrive. Then we watched an episode of Rah-Xephon while we waited for dessert. Then it was off to the anime panel but the panelist's voices were so quiet and the sweaty fan smell so strong that I retreated. I then sat around chatting with people until the filk panel at 23:00. I sat an listened for an hour and we were all inducted into the WOOOO game by Larry and Mercedes. At Midnight I made like a pumpkin and went back to my room to sleep.

Speaking of Dark Clouds Outside, I bet even the arid region known as Tuart Hill got a bit of rain last night...

Dark clouds outside
Rob: It is more like the RSPCA refuge. It might be pre-loved, it might be pre-abused, or just pre-ignored.

---

I went up to Swan View on Sunday for Mark's birthday party. I got trashed at both Mag-Blast and Samurai and Katana. Coming home at 8pm I found that the last busses anywhere close to my place stopped at 7:30. *sheesh* It's only Sunday guys ... no need to close everything down.

"I ordered an ISO Standard from the Standards Australia on-line shop"

Neat! I didn't know you could order new standards directly - or can you only order used ones? Either way, it must be useful, being able to just order up a standard to your own specifications. Do you suppose that Microso... Oh. I guess they do, don't they?

Sauron, ruler of the world
Freeciv finished Thursday evening. Mark's Swedish were holding their islands against all comers. And then their spaceship arrived at Alpha Centauri. Gary's Mordor had the highest points total. My Sioux nation came in third as predicted after the Swedish, and then came Richard's Canadians, Rob's Martians, and Leece's Dunedain. *whew*

Edited by author 19-01-2006 07:07
Morning has broken ...
Chrunch ... tinkle ... thud. Oh well. At Retro Betty's after work for burgers with Maureen, Rob, and Leece. Then back hom to watch the news, catch up on an ep of Dr Who from earlier in the week, into freeciv, and finally to bed.

---

I missed almost all of the Sylverster McCoy Dr Who episodes when they were first broadcast here. So now I am catching up and Ace has just appeared. Ace is good value and probably my favourite companion after Nyssa. After her ... probably Lalla Ward. 8-)

---

Freeciv is almost over. Mark will win unless we can pull off a miracle. The year is currently 1697AD And I think Mark's Spaceship arrives in 1701 or not long thereafter. The Sioux are still mostly third in the demographics without much hope of ever bettering that. However the game has been a learning experience. I now know how to be more competitive at this. 8-)

Service?
I ordered an ISO Standard from the Standards Australia on-line shop a week and a bit ago. The web page indicated it was in stock and the delivery options included express delivery which I chose. The confirmation e-mail said delivery in 2-4 days. 6 working days later I ring up and enquire where is it. Oh that is coming from ISO Direct and will take another 1 - 3 weeks. Huh? Hello, this is not the way to encourage business. Although I guess you don't have to when you are a monopoly. *sheesh*

---

In freeciv it is 1684AD. The brinkmanship has stopped for the moment. The Sioux have altered their strategy to try and up their population a little. Shift the production goals to maximum food and adjust the taxation until all the cities start celebrating. Use the extra trade to offset the production loss by buying units and building settlers in the largest cities to ship to the smallest. I can't say this has been an unequivocal success but it was an interesting experiment. On the Demographics sont the Sioux are first in Research Speed and Economics, 2nd in Pollution, 3rd in Population, Land Area, and Settled Area, and 4th in Production and Military Service. Mordor is first in population and size and Sweden is first in production.

Breakfast with the birds
Well not exactly with ... but a couple of TwentyEights came down and dined delicately on a couple of small Sunflower seed heads in our front garden.

---

In freeciv it is now 1674AD ... Last night's play was characterised by a lot of brinkmanship on the part of Richard's Canadians. The Sioux are still third in the demographics and Mark's Swedish are mostly first. Gary's Orcs have finally discovered the manual and celebration days have been the order of the moment.

Monday?
That it is I'm afraid.The weekend was fairly pleasantly wasted . We even had sufficient sunshine to dry the washing ... something that should not be in doubt at this time of year.

---

In freeciv it is now 1664AD. The Sioux are fairly solidly ensconced in third place. The shock news is that Sweden has overtaken Mordor in everything but land size.Of course Sweden is making hay as a democracy while everyone else has shifted to Communism in preparation for a global blow up. A staring match ensues. Who will blink first?

Was that Summer?
Leaden skies, drizzle, warm temperatures ... only one of these things is a clue to the fact we are in the middle of summer. What I worry about is that dieback spreads fastest in these conditions. 8-(

---

JAFWA had its first meeting for he year last night. Because they thought a lot of people might not be available they had an evening of first episodes of current Japanese shows. Most of the shows were write-offs from our point of view but a couple seemed to have promise. Noein is a tale involving some schoolkids and a cross dimensional strike force. Nice grapics, reasonable characters, and an interesting story line. Then there was Solty Rei. I must admit that I was suspicious of the title but I have been pleasantly suprised. The setting is a high-tech, post calamity, world and the main characters are a embittered bounty hunter and a young girl with super powers and no memory. I can't say these shows rock but they work competently and I think both are worth checking out.

---

In the freeciv game it is 1605AD and the world has polarized into the friends of Sauron and the rest. In the dempgraphics chart the Sioux still have 2 firsts in Research Speed and Economics, 1 second in land area, 4 thirds in population, settled area, production, an military service, and 2 fourths in literacy and pollution. Mordor is still the dominant player and I suspect Sweden is second, Sioux are probably third and then it is a toss-up between Canada and the Martians with the Dunedain trailing along.

I can feel the knife approaching
The Sioux are being ganged up on. Pity really ... oh well, to much winning at Mag-Blast I suppose and now they have to get it out of their systems 8-).

That was never Summer just then
M1n 18°C Max 21°C 14mm rain. It overcasted and drizzled all day. And some say this is Summer.

---

In other news it is 1525AD in the freeciv game. The Sioux still have 5 third positions, two seconds and two fifths. I'm not last in literacy any more ... yay!

I think it's too late for more settlers, perhaps when I've stopped doing what I've doing. Oh. And there's that to do. And that. And that...

Still not summer
1370AD in the freeciv game. Mordor still dominates the Demographics rankings although the Martians have taken Literacy at 96% and the Canadians have Military Service (which is a minimizer). The Sioux now have 5 thirds, a second ( for Research Speed ) and a 6th for Literacy. Being scared of Mordor is good it helps players to forget about me concentrate on co-operative play against a common threat. But people won't attack until they feel they have a decisive advantage. Which they probably won't ever have.
The Sioux are still having their production problems but we have put a few more workers into the field, got a couple of factories online, and tweaked my custom CMA set to better ballance resource sharing between neighbouring citys.
There are some suprisingly small empires out there ... in particular both the Martians and the Dunedain have incompletely settled the islands they occupy. I consider my own city count to be marginal based on my experiences with "hard" computer players. More settlers guys ... before somone raises a Terra Nullus decree.

---

Thanks for the link Rob ...I'll look into it. One of the recent Linux Journal mags had an article on a lunch box sized, ARM based, beowulf cluster at 2W per node ... 8-) mush more suitable for solar power that the power guzzlers I use now.

As far as solar power goes, have you had a look at these guys: http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au ? They are heading into mass production this month, and about $10K will get you enough to drive your average house at an energy profit. And you get back about $6k in environmental rebates.

---

In the freeciv game, meantime, I think everyone is justly scared of the evil Mordor! It will take a grand alliance to take them down - and I suspect that that will not occur until they start building something that really scares people - like the Apollo Program.
And Mars? Issac's Kingdom? We're just trying to make sure that we're just tough enough all round to not be the first target of opportunity when the shooting starts! Although it is kind of surprising that we have managed to be first in Literacy. And last or second last in almost everything else!

And now it isn't
Back to cool again for Sunday. In fact so cool that there wasn't any point doing washing as there were doubts that it would dry. Pottered around in and out of the house. Maureen spotted a flower on the Elephants Ear Philodendron hiding behind one of the leaves.

---

1240AD in freeciv. Mordor still dominates the demographics charts. Sweden is a technology whore. The Sioux have stalled. We are currently second in Economics and third in everything else except Literacy (5th) and Pollution (equal first with everyone else). We've had a big drive to increase production but frankly it isn't going anywhere. Too few workers early on and now I've run into a resource crunch. Sunday was also the day where people kept wanting me to give them my top technologies for stuff that isn't on my direct research path. Some people were verging on pestering which made me out of sorts with the other traders that maybe weren't so pushy.

Edited by author 08-01-2006 07:49
Summer is icumin in
Hot yesterday. Very hot considering how cool it hs been so far this season. And the ants have turned up on the kitchen benches. All round bad day.

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I got a call from a mate, Joe Blake, on Friday. He has got himself an electric hub-motor for his Greenspeed. I forgot to ask whether it was on the trike or bike. Joe says it cuts 25 minutes off his commute up the Darling Scarp which is not inconsiderable. He has also been getting into solar power at home and can run a basic set of services purely from solar power. He is still 10 years ahead of where I would like to be. Although I think tackling greywater recycling is a higher priority than power services.

---

It is 980AD in the freeciv game. Not much happened yesterday due to various people having incompatible family commitments. The Sioux have mostly overcome their happiness problems but production is unusually low for some reason. Still I am second in Population, Settled Area, Production, and Economics. Trouble is, Mordor is ahead of my by a large measure in all those categories. I offered an exchange of shared vision to a number of people yesterday and it was amazing the degree of paranoia it generated. 8-)

Edited by author 07-01-2006 07:19
The world is cylindrical
Or at least it is in freeciv. Gaming last night was cut short as nearly everyone wanted to go home and play freeciv. Before the diaspora we had a six player game of Mag-Blast in which I not only won but took 4 of the 5 kills to be had *preen*. The second game was more a bit shorter ... as I commented "He who lives by the quick kill dies by the quick kill".

My Sioux nation is still plodding along. Still second player in three of the demographics measure. Mordor is first in each by a big measure. 8-( I managed to snaffle Leonardo's Workshop which is one of the wonders that I wanted but I look unlikely to get the other. Especially since my production of caravans was badly hit by an ill-advised move to Republic.

I have now met all the other players and my ironclads are slowly starting to clear away the fog of war. I suspect it wont be long before things start to turn ugly. I'm really too close to Mordor. I have to hope someone else annoys or attacks him. Mark's Swedish seem a good bet for that. 8-)

The Martians are gougers. :-) Still, friendly enough.

Not so much a bang
Well, Gary is friendly enough ... just that he is bigger than I am at almost everything. 8-) Rob is also friendly ... for limited values of friendly. Rob wants you to pay for everything ... at a premium rate. *I* say it is a result of too many settlers tournaments.

Still, with no time limit on turns, the game isn't too far along yet. I just need to promote my research rate from second to first. Hah! I also need to get that wonder and that other wonder. 8-(

Or the friendly ones are too far away to trade with.

Let the bloodbath begin
I started a game of freeciv last night with Rob, Leece, Gary, Richard, and Mark. I can tell I'm lagging behind from the Demographics report *sigh*. There is never enough of anything you need, every start position is bad, and your neighbours are unfreindly, untrustworthy, or both. 8-)

Burswood Cinema
We accompanied Sally to watch Howl's Moving Castle last night. The english translation wasn't bad but it would have helped if the translator had read the book so he knew what not to fool with. We got sprinkled on lightly but then the stars came out and the night was very clear. The film was, of course, excellent but there wasn't a huge turnout.

Games Day Aftermath
Yesterday was a Rob & Leece Games day over at Rob's parents place. At peak we had around 11 people. I playes 3 games of "Mag-Blast", a game of "Age of Mythology", a game of "Vinci", and a game of "6 Nimmt" ( or mad cow as I prefer to call it ).

I won the 5 player "Mag-Blast" and came second on one of the 4 player games. Not too bad. I think a good day was had by all.

Today I'm off down to Fremantle to see one of my old wargaming buddies, Bruce, who is having a fight with cancer. The jury is still out on the lomg term result of this one.

Blip! Here we are ...
It's quiet, cool, and still outside but already quite sunny. John came over last night and we ate a pleasant knock up dinner outside, watched some old anime, and saw the new year in. This morning I wasn't wishing to be up his early but there you go. Off to Rob's parent's place today as there will be gaming. Hi Ho!

sorry missed the birthday. things are strange. hope the hip's all mended, and you're all bouncy abouts.

-C

Stupid Gentoo
Saturday I rebooted Eldred to bring in a new kernel and when I tried to log in Gnome utterly failed to start the window manager. *Sigh* go back and reboot with the old kernel. Oops, it doesnt work with that one either. Hmmmm.
Now I know this version of Gnome works because I've compiled it from the same source on William my new box and it works there. So I recompiled the obvious things and even tried trashing the user preferences (in the test login). Still nothing.
After about five hours I got seriously annoyed and copied the portage "world" file to one side. I then stripped it back to a few choice core applications and ran emerge --depclean to clear everything out. After that it was time to build everything anew. Yesterday evening I was able to boot back into Gnome finally. So ... what weekend 8-(

Edited by author 05-09-2005 20:52
Spring
And spring is the season for birthdays for Stevegses. 8-)
We and some friends went off to the Good Fortune restaurant for Peking Duck on Saturday. Food was enjoyed in convivial company and a good time was had.
Friday night at gaming I couldn't put a foot wrong and ended up winning all three games (two Ticket to Ride: Europe and Gargon). Mind you I'm not saying it was easy but I got more than my fair share of lucky breaks.
Sunday was setting up the new computer. An AMD Sempron 2800+ on an ASUS K8V-X motherboard with a Gigabyte of Memory and a couple of 120 Gigabyte Western Digital SATA drives. No bleeding edge here. I'm loading Gentoo my "favourite" Linux distribution.
Today Maureen produced a candlelit dinner of Lamb Shanks with a birthday muffin to celebrate.
Mmmm lucky Stevegses. 8-)

Edited by author 28-07-2005 08:47
More card fun
Now the camera is not the slickest or fastest device to be using as an USB - SD Card interface. Somewhere along the line I managed to trash the filesystem while trying to shut down a transfer before the camera batteries expired. D'oh.
The answer (after I had downloaded the toolset) was to run fsck.vfat. The inner secret is to use the -w switch that immediately updates the card when a problem is fixed.
I now need to get a file manager program for the E2 so that I can manipulate and rename files and directories on the SD Card. Then there is the 1GB card (with only 256MB I'm starting to get habituated to the song set). And the external keyboard. And ... commercial software. Ahhh Ahhh ahhhhhrrrrr ....

Card fun.
Since I have started full time work again I have been missing having my Palm III available to synchronize to Outlook. However somwhere at WA Police my Windows installation disks went missing. Last week I bit the bullet and purchased a new Palm Tungsten E2. Nice colour screen, 32 MB of internal storage (up from 2MB on the III), a slot for SD cards, and the capability to play mp3s.
Unfortunately the mp3 player software is Real Player. To install you have to have a Windows machine with an internet connection and it requires the Real Player to be installed on your desktop. Along the way it also wants to collect your life history. 8-(
In the end I gave Real the flick after it kept failing to connect to its home site in a stable manner. So ... I went looking for an open source player. The choice appears to be TCPMP or TCPMP. Luckily TCPMP works. At least all the important bits do. It is still at version 0.66 and needs some more work in the interface and play lists. But it plays!
Part of the advantage of using an SD card is that is what my digital camera uses and viewing images on the E2 is a lot nicer than viewing them on the camera.
So anyway I came to load up some songs onto the card and I find I cant do it through pilot-link (the open source *nix tool set). No prob. I'll just grab the 12in1 card reader and mount the card as a USB storage device. Nope. No way. Lots of SCSI errors and no connect. Sooooo.... I load the card into the camera and use it as the interface to my Linux system. Ugly, possibly even desperate, but working.

Edited by author 25-07-2005 11:37
He does, seeeee! That's him down there.

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                       V

Ahhh Well
Yes, I am still here. I did spend a fair bit of time disconnected (over a month). And my amount of online activity has been minimal all round. Lessee now ...

---

I have completed the tail box for the trike. It works tolerably well but I can see a lot of improvements for Mk 2. I need to put up a page about it and the Solar power system that goes with it.

---

Work is still there. I spend my time doing far too many data fixups and not enough process improvment. 8-(

---

My hip is still sore. On and off. The insurance company is having me vetted in a couple of weeks.

---

The root canal work was completed and an enourmous amount of money passed on to pay for the crown. So now I'm "as flash as a rat with a gold tooth" ... or something.

SURE he does.

Steveg does still exist folks. I've SEEN him.

Edited by author 10-05-2005 09:03
Sort of still here
Well ... Westnet fixed my DNS problem fairly promptly. Their customer service is good - in fact rather better than my previous ISP. However the weirdo nature of the problem and the approx 12 hour action / re-action cycle did stretch out the elapsed time for the solution. Then I updated my Gentoo configuration which involved a considerable number of hours compilation. Then I found that Evolution was broken. Reallllly broken. Won't start and won't even leave an error message broken. Something in the yards long toolchain that supports Evolution is broken and hiding it.
At this point I gave up and went away. We're doing audit updates for one major customer at work while migrating to (and configuring) a new CM tool and by the time I get home anything more cerebral than vacuous game playing is not on the menu. So if you have sent me e-mail since before Anzac day I haven't seen it. Sorry.

---

I got the Z3 to talk to the computer. One of the USB drivers that is supposed to load automagically wasn't. I'll post some photo's soon. Actually there is one of mine over on Lympago. That is about a third of the image area so the quality seems pretty good.

---

I'm building a tail box for the trike on the weekends because it isn't anything even vaugely to do with computers. The structure is about three quarters done and I will soon need to start applying varnish while I can still get inside. The structure is 3-ply braced with 13mm aluminium right angle extrusion. I originally started the project using roofing bolts back before Christmas. Now I am using liquid nails and pop-rivets. The tail box will hold the 12V power system and the mounts for the solar panel. It is large enough that I can carry a suit bag without having to crunch it up. And it is a moderately secure container that I can leave on the bike ... unlike the pannier.

---

In case you are wondering I am about 75% of the way through recompiling the tool chain. I wish Gentoo would use a Configuration Management system rather than a crude (from a CM PoV) Version Management system. Still given that I continually see commercial systems that fall short of the mark ... mumble ... mumble ... *sob*.

Remote update 8-(
I'm off the air at the moment. Westnet has stuffed my DNS service. I spent most of the Monday public holiday trying to find a problem that wasn't in my computer at all. 8-( 8-( 8-(.

Edited by author 24-04-2005 10:57
Old Friends and stupid cameras
Hi Fran, of course I remember you! How are you? How is the family? Are you still in Melbourne? *grin*.

---

I purchased a digital camera on the weekend. Specifically a Konica Minolta dImage Z3. This is a nice little compact unit with 12X optical zoom and anti shake. As far as I can tell it all works fine except that I can't make it talk to Linux. 8-(. This is strange as the Z3 is specifically listed as working correctly. It goes into a state of "Initialising USB" and doesn't come out. Neither is it visible on the USB chain. *sigh*, technology, *feh*.

Hello Steveg, this is Fran.

Remember me?

Dragon?
From dragonhame via Poss:

---

Mithril Dragon

In the war between good and evil, Mithril Dragons take the side of the noble and good.
When it comes to the powers of Chaos vs. those of Law and Order, your inner dragon walks a fine line between Law and Chaos.
As far as magical tendancies, Magical spells come as natural to the Mithril Dragon as breathe from it's body.
During combat situations, a true Mithril Dragon prefers to defeat opponents by the use of spells and other tactics.
Dragon Description:

Mithril Dragons build and dwell in castles of crystal, high in the mountainous regions. A Mithril Dragon is honest and gentle.

Mithril Dragons are armored with highly reflective scales. To see one in bright sunshine has the effect of looking at a multi-ton, 150 ft. long disco ball.

They tend to smile frequently but rarely laugh aloud. Mithril's dislike violence. A Mithril Dragon is very selective when choosing close friends, but is generally admired by all. A Mithril Dragon leads a very quiet and unobtrusive life.Never judgmental, the great Mithril Dragon's feelings run deep and true. Mithril Dragons mate for life.

This Dragons favorite elements are: Mithril, Earth, and Courage

Poss was fasting and Rob got home late, and then they couldn't pry me away from my new tablet...

Thursday 14/04 AM
The root canal went off better than some fillings that I have had. The worst discomfort was probably trying to breathe past the rubber sheet they put in your mouth to keep saliva away from the open tooth. Yesterday was stage one; filing out the root canals and filling them with an antibiotic filler. In a month I go back for the actual fill and then there are two more visits to prep for and finally fit the cap. Once the tooth is dead it has a tendency to crumble and fitting the cap helps prevent this.

---

Alas, we were the only ones to turn up at Retro Betty's last night.

Speaking of evil pushers, I tried Dome's version of iced chai at the theatre last nice, and it's quite pleasant.

Wednesday 13/04 AM
Yeah, I'm awake. What of it? Grump.

---

I crossed over Vincent street yesterday lunchtime and wandered into Crave On. This place is seriously evil. Coffee, chocolate, exotic teas, sauces, and paraphenalia. I was strong of mind and will and I walked out with just a tea-ball so that I can drink my Twinings "Christmas tea". And very nice it is too. Fragments of cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel flavouring a black tea. It smells like plum pudding. When that runs out I will be back to Crave On for some Chai which the ever evil Rob and Leece introduced me to. Damn pushers.

---

Ahhh ... what was the other thing I was going to mention ... Oh yeah! Baygon Ant Foam (/m166) is back on the shelves at the Dewsons near where I work. Yes! Prepare to die you little buggers.

---

I must have a hearty breakfast 'cause the condemmed man is off to a mid morning root-canal and I can't see the effects having worn off in time for lunch.

Sunday 10/04 Afternoon
Todays brisk activity was ratting and dumping 3 PCs including the PowerEdge mentioned earlier in these chronicles. Rob came over and assisted in the ratting process and took away some memory and other assorted cards. Actually I wasn't game to open the box of the old 386, too many spiderwebs. There are a lot of computer cases, assorted obsolete cards, small capacity disk drives, and printers at the Balcatta recycling shed. Also shifted out were two printers and a bunch of assorted toxic household wastes.
Dumping the PowerEdge was a tough decision. I liked the battery backed up raid card and the string of SCSI disks but the dual CPUs chewed far too much power which they liberally transferred to the room as heat via fan sets that were just too noisy. Still it was kind neat. However, all is not lost, I did keep the SCSI 3 raid controller with all the fruit and the two 8GB disk drives. They will just fit into the case (I hope).

'S working
The power supply transplant seems to have done the job. Whew!

---

Dinner last night at Retro Bettys in Leederville. Rob, Leece, Ros, and Poss were all there. It's been a while since we had a gathering of this magnitude for Wednesday din-dins. Before dinner we were in Oxford St Books picking up a copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse. Rob and Leece brought a flyer for this year's Astrofest: Saturday 16th April at Trinity College, East Perth.

---

There is a fog bank outside. Maureen, who went out in it, reports visibility of less than 100 meters.

Wednesday 06/04 PM
Well the power supply died utterly yesterday. Or was it the MIBs being clever? Lunchtime today was a foray into Perth to obtain a new one. I picked up a quiet dual fan MPT-301. Unfortunately the second fan points upwards against the top of the case. Oh well, it does have a couple of extra disk power connectors. Just the thing to strip out the largest couple of SCSI drives from the PowerEdge and add them in. But no ... I can't see how to extract the hotplug trays and the individual disks have connectors that don't match any of the cables I have to hand. D'oh. Maybe later then.

---

I saw a Black Shouldered Kite near Lake Monger yesterday evening. Nothing particularly unusual about that although I haven't seen them recently.

The MIBs are going to be knocking at your door if you keep this up.

Monday 04/04 PM
Strange ... Last nights ABC news reported the discovery of three explosive devices at the site of yesterdays "gas" explosion. But the articles on the ABC web site have no mention of the devices and the entire affair seems to be being rapidly buried. Hmmmm.

Edited by author 03-04-2005 19:40
Sunday 03/04 PM
I had my lie-in interrupted by the gas blast at around 6:30ish. Maureen reported a blocked off side street over at Wanneroo road. The ABC web site says a block of units demolished with seven injured, one seriously. Certainly gave my adrenaline a jolt.

---

Later we went over to the Craft and Community Fair in Robinson reserve. A bunch of stalls mostly selling jewellry or franchised stuff. We looked around, avoided the mayors opening speech, and then had a cup of tea with fruitcake while listening to the brass band. Bought some Apricot Chutney from the Gin-Gin Jams stall.

---

Powered up the Windows box. Not a sausage. Replaced the power supply. Better but still won't boot reliably. Tried various linux boot disks. Won't boot them either. It loads the kernel ok and then reboots as soon as it tries to switch into the kernel. Hmmm. Not Good. Strip and dump I think. Computer shopping next weekend.

Friday 01/04 AM
Before Easter = Hot, mostly humid, and occasional thundery showers.
After Easter = Cool, damp, and drizzle.
Just like flicking a switch.

---

First pay since September in my bank account. Wheeee!

---

I've been off looking at replacement computer cases and bits. The dead Win98 box needs to be ratted for parts and disposed of. The Dell PowerEdge 4100/200 really needs to go. It is physically too large, too noisy, and produces too much heat. Except that I really want to find some way to retain that hardware RAID stack *sigh*. My current box should move to a smaller case and become (semi) portable. I can get a two point mumble gig AMD processer for just over a hundred dollars and a motherboard for about the same. I need to cost half a gig of DDR memory as well. Hmmmmm. It is still far cheaper than buying a store system.

---

New Scientist is currently offering a chance at a Sony Vaio if I buy a subscription. Hmmm, we have been intending to do that anyway.

Edited by author 31-03-2005 08:01
Thursday 31/03 AM
The power supply is still shutting down when I bump the top of the case. Minimum treatment looks like a dismantle and clean. Luckily the reiser filesystem is robust and stable.

---

Work is ... work. I'm entering PC and laptop assets. All day yesterday and probably all today as well. The old Configuration Manager has moved to a new posting and one of the staff has been made CM for a three month trial. I had the lady in question pegged as the most conservative member of the team but she is doing well looking for a better way to do things. This I am happy to assist with. The next level manager has been hinting that they may have an on-going position for me but there isn't any real sign what it is yet.

Business as usual
I caught a taxi home yesterday morning, did the quick change thing, and thence off to work where I spent the day yawning just like all the people who didn't go to Swancon.
When I came home and re-assembled my computer it started shutting down the power supply if it was even bumped slightly. Hmmm, more work. I was going to put up some more Swancon awards information but the swancon.com machine is down and I don't think many people will see the mirrors.

Post Swancon de-compression
I'm still in the hotel. Maureen came down last night to pick up bulky stuff and have dinner so all I have to move is my computer and some clothes.
I managed to get in two more panels yesterday. One was the the closing ceremony and the other was interesting and unusual. I had poked my nose into the ex-art show room and stopped to chat with Emma Hawkes. A little later a discussion on gender pronouns arrived and started operating. It was all really interesting and sounded like they were moving to the Japanese model by using genderless pronouns where they existed and names where the grammer demanded a he/she or her/him type pronoun. There was some discussion of alternatitive genderless pronouns used in fiction and also in live usage in various languages. Okay, I admit I find this stuff interesting but that is just my wiring. I found out later from Elaine that this was a extention of the Slashcon convention within a convention and had only been advertised in the women's toilets. Ah well.

Swancon 2005 part four 07:30 Mon
Do I say an extra day in the hotel room or do I not? Ahh descisions.
Yesterday was mostly spent prepping for the awards ceremony. I currently have a laser printer attached to my machine and very simple it was to get running. I managed to use up every last sheet of parchment we bought with only three sheets spoilage *whew*.
Charles de Lint, MaryAnn Harris, and Ann Poore were making music in the foyer for a good part of the afternoon. I got to stop by for around a quarter hour.
I got to attend two more complete panels. The Swancon 31 launch and the awards ceremony. Wow, that is now 3 whole program items now.
I hope this will be a quiet day. No memberships and few duties.
Thanks to Elaine for donating her last two fingers of cheap scotch to Steveg support.

Swancon 2005 part three 08:30 Sun
I can't positively say what I spent yesterday doing. Some time on the desk, some time typing up awards certificates, some time doing zombie impressions. More braaaaaaiiiiiinnnnnnssss.
Maureen came by yesterday afternoon so we we out to the New Shima Japanese restaurant. We returned to see a fire engine parked outside the hotel. The smoke machine for the masquerade had set off the fire alarms. Coreynn (spelling?) seemed very pleased with herself - she had managed to try on a lot of fire helmets.
I managed more sleep again last night. Yay!

Swancon 2005 part two 06:00 Sat
Did nothing but sit on the registration desk yesterday. My hip was a bit stiff from the sitting and I was tired as all get-out. Rob and Leece came down near the end of the day and sat with me for an hour or so playing Chrononauts. Kutos to Sue Isle for the large mug of tea and Rob for filling my thermos with coffee. To be honest I was mostly too tired to be bothered getting up and finding out what was going on. Because all the food stores are closed on Good Friday we organised Pizza in the Park. This worked well even if lots of people grabbed more than they paid for. Oh well. After dinner I went up the Rob & Leece's room for gaming. Gary turned up with the "Tin Duck" awards that he had been making . Very nice they looked. The artist (Brian Choo) was impressed. We then played Carcasonne until 22:00 and then I crawled off to bed.

Swancon 2005 part one 07:30 Fri
Well I survived the first day and got just over 6 hours of sleep which is better than I did last night. I'm connected through the hotel by broadband and it is all good.
Spent most of yesterday afternoon on the desk. I went in for the opening ceremony and the last 4 songs of the Charles and MaryAnn concert. Good stuff ... folk club style material a professional standards. It cost an arm and a leg for the sound gear and the sound techs but it would have been worth it for those people who got to hear the whole thing.
If there are random letters missing it is because I am not using my usuall keyboard. This is a keyboard from a 1990s vintage portable (luggable) and it is compact and has a very nice feel. Maybe I should take it into work to substitute for the really crappy one they gave me to use.
Download rates are about 10 times what I get through dialup at home so I'm sucking down the latest Gentoo updates for my system. There is an Xorg/X11 release and a who;e lot of Gnome stuff in there. Woot! It is all done inside an hour.
Oh yeah. The Swancon site is down again. I think I'll go hit a WASFF committee member when I go downstairs.
The broadband ended just as I finished typing this so the posting time isn't going to match.

Blear
I had five hours sleep last night, I've been entering the final rush of pre-Swancon receipts since 5am and the convention starts in 10 hours or so. I'm dead alread ... it is going to be "go back to work and rest".

10 Anime for Madman
Every year Madman enquires around the Australian anime clubs for suggestions from the members about what good anime is out there. Here is our list:
* Planetes [series].
* Mermaid's Forest [series?].
* Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Second Gig [series].
* Ghost in the Shell: Innocence [movie].
* Appleseed [movie].
* Scrapped Princess [series][I think you already have this one but I haven't seen a release date].
* Howl's Moving Castle [movie][I assume you are getting this anyway 8-)].
* Five Star Stories [movie][fairly old but really nice visuals and just getting a US release].
* Anime Runner Kurumi (?spelling) [movie & sequel][another oldish one with a recent US release - would be nice partnered with the sequel which doesn't seem to have a US release yet].
* Legend of the Condor Hero [series Tai Seng?][not a Japanese release - the graphic novels for this were published in Singapore, feels very like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon].
* Shadow Star (Narutaru?) [series].

Mon PM 07/03
Poor tired Stevegses. I rode down to McIver station intending to catch the train to Cannington and ride out to the Swancon meeting. When the train arrived it was full. What on earth was happening in Perth? So I ended up riding out to Cannington. And back as well. That was somewhere around 18 Km each way rather than the planned 15 Km total.

Edited by author 05-03-2005 12:13
Sat Noon 05/03
One week down 7 (or so) to go. 8-)

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Thanks Rob. M and I went out to a local restaurant Villa Picasso for our anniversary meal. Rob's Newton thinks we were married 7 years ago. We aren't sure. I guess that's why you have witnesses.

And (according to my diary) Happy Anniversery to you both!

Mon PM 28/02
Work worked. 8-). I had a good day. The local bicycle shop gives 15% off to people who work nearby.

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The Transperth routefinder website sucks the piss bigtime. It cant even find me a bus route to get to work without a long walk. Now, while route finders in general are a hard problem, there are well known alorithms such as A* that perform very well with a few hundred options. Just about right for a bus network I would think. However this travesty behaves like it was programmed by a cubicle farm of monkeys randomly hammering on keyboards.

Hope you have a good day at your new work today, Steveg.

That's right, I WASN'T the oldest.

Richard has obviously so traumatised me I just assume that I am.

Fri Noonish 25/02
Work! Yay! Starting 8:30 Monday. I wonder how long it will take to lose its lustre?

---

Everyone except Ros and Poss: See, it's nice not being the senior all the time.

">>Forgot to mention Poss's birthday. A very good dinner at the Himali Gurkha. Very tasty and consorting with pleasant company wherer I am not the oldest person. 8-) >>

Oh shut up."

Ha! Whippersnappers!

Wed Noonish 23/02
Still waiting for the paperwork. Arrrrgggghhhh!

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I need to go hunting Loctite. For some reason the local hardware store doesn't stock it. The bolts holding the mount for the GPS keep undoing so I want to "fix 'em proper like". There is also a sheet of corflute lying about out the front which I am eying off as a rear mudguard replacement. I'm thinking of building a short form of the bicycle battery box just to get the 12V touring power system up and running. Play, play, play. 8-)

Poss: Well, as it happens, neither were you!

>>Forgot to mention Poss's birthday. A very good dinner at the Himali Gurkha. Very tasty and consorting with pleasant company wherer I am not the oldest person. 8-) >>

Oh shut up.

Read more here.

Mon AM 21/02
Waiting for the paperwork. Well I have a job ... just as soon as the paperwork is complete. Two months contract work in Perth doing Configuration Management.

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The House of Flying Daggers
We went to see this one yesterday afternoon on a short notice whim and enjoyed it immensely. THoFG has romance, dancing, acrobatics, scenery, impossible slo-mo feats, good cop - bad cop, and martial arts up the wazoo. The "echo game" near the start is just about worth the entrance price on its own.

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Saturday was gaming day hosted by Rob and Leece. I had a win at History of the World which would have been a lot less spectacular if I hadn't lucked into the Bryzantines when I did. Near the end of the night the parents of one of the gamers dropped by to give her a lift. Turns out to be old SCA people. It makes me feel old when suddenly I find out that I have known people I thought I had just met since they were children. *sigh*

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Forgot to mention Poss's birthday. A very good dinner at the Himali Gurkha. Very tasty and consorting with pleasant company wherer I am not the oldest person. 8-)

Fri Noon 18/02
It has been much cooler the last couple of days. So much so that I was wearing a light jacket when I went to the shops yesterday.
Went down to SCG for X-Rays and a checkup of the pelvis. Everything is progressing nicely. I had a chat with the doctor about the long term prognosis which is a hip replacement. Ulp I went. An accident like this upsets the blood flow to the ball joint which may develop into Avascular Necrosis any time up to three years from the accident. If I get past that (and the specialist says the chances are excellent) then I'll be ok for a few years. Somwhere around ten years down the track I start to cop an increased chance of needing an early hip replacement. Yeah right ... something to look forward to.

Tues PM 15/02
Oooooowwwww. Hothothothot! 42°C today. Poor little melted Stevegses were out in it visiting the city and then getting supplies from Herdie Fresh. Phwew!
We picked up Destroyer the 7th book of C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner universe as well as other booky goodies. Hmmmmm.

Mon AM 14/02
Today is humid and warm and likely to get very hot and unpleasant. There was thunder and lightning growling out around the coast late last night and again this morning.

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We watched a really good program about the English language on SBS last night. It was hidden in the Lost Worlds segment with no explanations in the program. This weeks episode covered the language reformers of the 18^th Century through Samuel Johnson's dictionary and the language usage in Wordsworth's poems, Jane Austin's novels, and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. GBS aparently wrote Pygmalion as a commentry about how people would follow orators who spoke "well" as if speaking well blessed the content of the speech with mystical rightness. There was a bubble of jingoism he hoped to burst in time to prevent Englands entry into WW1. Instead the play was mired in controvosy over Eliza's single use of "bloody" in one scene and the larger message was lost. Good series ... witty and informative. *****

I scored as Sci Fi/Fantasy. Surprise, surprise.

Edited by author 12-02-2005 16:03
Leece's movie tastes, apparently. Um. I haven't *seen* any of these!!!

You scored as Artistic.
Congratulations, you scored Artistic. You're looking for the unique movie in the bunch. You've probably watched a lot of movies that nobody has ever heard of, and good for you. You also know good filmmaking when you see it. You just get it, no questions asked. Check out: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie, Garden State, Lost in Translation.

Artistic - 95%
Sci-Fi/Fantasy - 90%
Mindfuck - 90%
Mindless Action Flick - 70%
Sadistic Humour - 55%
Romantic Comedy - 50%
Drama/Suspense - 45%
Movie Recommendation.created with QuizFarm.com

Edited by author 12-02-2005 09:18
Sat AM 12/02
Stuff happens as it always does. WASFF wants to have its books audited 6 weeks before the Con.
Watched the first 4 episodes of Lunar Legend Tsukihime. This series looks good.
Rode the trike up to gaming last night. It all went very well and I won Ticker to Ride.
I had a sad inditement of my film tastes from quizfarm:

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You scored as Mindfuck.
Congratulations, you scored Mindfuck. You've probably seen a lot of movies, and have grown to hate mainstream shit. You're looking for the movie that will leave you breathless, and with 21 questions to think about. Check out: Donnie Darko, Being John Malkovich, Pulp Fiction, Memento.

• Mindfuck - 85%
• Drama/Suspense - 70%
• Artistic - 60%
• Sci-Fi/Fantasy - 40%
• Sadistic Humour - 20%
• Romantic Comedy - 0%
• Mindless Action Flick - 0%

Movie Recommendation. created with QuizFarm.com

Edited by author 03-02-2005 09:39
Thu AM 03/02
Nearly the end of the week again. We rode down to Retro Betty's to have a nice dinner with Rob and Leece last night. It's been a pretty non-descript week. Fighting off back pain and not being inspired to do much. Feh!

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All the new anime for this month are almost consumed and there ae no new Madman releases until Feb 23^rd. Wolf's Rain and 12 Kingdoms head the monthly list. Both continue to be good to the core. Last Exile ended this month. I'm a little confused about what the ending signified but getting there was pretty cool. And finally Gad Guard is still holding our interset on the second watching. I am immediately wary of any story about a bunch of kids discovering self assembling big robots in a post apocalyptic world. However, this one has held my interest as the characters develop in different ways.

Ah, yes...I should've been a little more specific. :-)

Leece: You mean the Disney version?

Feh...it sounds a bit like it's trying to slide into Hunchback of Notre Dame...

The Phantom of the Opera
It has been about 10 years since I saw the stage play of this show. The film is different and I'm not sure it is better. For the most part the music is there as I remember but some things that looked right on the stage just look silly on film. I suspect the expectation is the thing. On stage you do not expect to see a fully detailed view of everything. The props suggest and our minds fill in the detail. With the film the whole canvas is pre-painted with no room for any abridgment. The glaring example is when the phantom is taking Christine accross the resevoir. In the original the stage is covered in mist which the boat glides through and lighted candelabras rise up through the mist. In the film they do the same thing but it just looks silly. Who replaces the candles? How come they are all brand new? How? Why?
And then there are the inevitable rewrites. This thing was a winner folks. The only re-writes it needed were to change the scenery and props to things that work on film. But noooo, we have to fiddle. All trace of any supernatural powers that the phantom has have been ruthlessly expunged from the script. Gone are the fireballs that the phantom throws at Raoul in the cemetery. Gone is any reason for the mental dominition that Christine is held in when she is abducted. And La Carlotta loses her voice because of a substituted throat spray. *sigh*. The phantom has changed beyond all recognition as well. Gone is the arcane mechanical and architectural genius who learned his trade in the East and came to Paris to build the Opera house. Welcome to the deformed gypsy boy who taught himself all these things while hiding in the cellars for the past 10 or maybe 20 years. Feh! And the motive of the phantom seems to have changed. He seems a lot more interested in possesing Christine's body rather than her voice. But that may just be my changed perceptions. And the phantoms thundered "So, it is to be war between us" has been reduced to a mumble.
The music carries this film. There is a lot of fine propwork, even the bits that don't work for me are technically well done. The voices for Raoul and the phantom seemed just a tad weak early in the film but that may have been the fact that they haven't been performing the show for several years. The opening scenes of the auction are extended through the film and work well. The transition to the cemetery, which always left me a little mystified, works far better in the film.
And now for the failures. The masquerade is dissapointing and dingy. The rooftop looks and feels like a set. And the phantom isn't horrifying. His burns look more like severe sunburn than horrible disfigurement. And the whole terror of the indian noose has been reduced to some clumsily handled hemp rope.
Go and see it for the music. Or maybe see it if you have never seen the stage show and whant to know the story.

Sat AM 29/01
Wednesday: We rode our bikes to Perth in the evening for the skyshow. First we stopped on the lawns of Russell Square in Northbridge to have a picnic tea and then we found a possy at the foot of Mount street just off the freeway bike path to watch the fireworks. Mostly it was the same-old but with more fireworks in the air at once. I suspect there is a effect where the brain becomes saturated by the spectacle and more coloured explosions don't add anything. There were a few shapes that I hadn't seen before ... a star in a circle kinda like the USAF roundel.
Thursday: Maureen was at work so I was left pottering around the house. I cooked Kirsten's Chickpea Chilli (without the chilli in deference to Maureen) and some multigrain Cinnamon scrolls. The Chilli went down well except that we forgot to put the pot in the fridge. Oh well. The cinnamon scrolls were a real hit! We have been rationing out the remainder ever since.
Friday: Not much happening. We rode into Perth in the late afternoon to get a new kickstand for M's bike and check the arrivals at Quality Comics. Then on to a bite of food at the Nagoya. Then a very pleasant ride home in the setting sun.
Today: I'm not sure what the plan is. I'll play it by ear.

Wed AM 26/01 Australia Day
Looks to be heading for a nice day outside. In the absence of interest in a BBQ we shall probably bike down to the sky show tonight.
Not much happening on the job front. No word from any of the positions I've had interviews for. No new interviews. One new line cast in the water. No rejections. *sigh*

Sun AM 23/01
The air has been smokey since Wednesday from the bushfires in the Darling Scarp. Not good for people with breating problems. Not good for the animals at the Zoo. Poss reports on Kangaroo dead from stress (down-wind from a fire, unable to run).
Went to Retro Bettys with Maureen, Poss, and Leece on Wednesday evening for burgers. Thursday was pottering around and clearing up the Swancon mailing list. Friday was more of the same with a raid into Perth to get supplies from Kakulis Bros. ... mostly flours and grains for breadmaking. Saturday was finishing the mailing list, the Swancon Comittee meeting, and then JAFWA. Maureen turned up late to JAFWA as she had to borrow a car to pick up Judith & Joseph from the bus terminal. After JAFWA we took J & J to the International Airport. We didn't stay to see them off as their flight was at 2am.
Still no word on the job front. Added three more applications in progress, all in the Eastern States. That makes 7 in-progress at the moment. There is a huge range in offered salaries. Everything from $50,000 to $100,000 for very similar job descriptions and experience requirements.

Edited by author 19-01-2005 10:48
Wed AM 19/01
Friday was up to Kings Park with Maureen, Judith, and Joseph. We walked the Botanic Gardens including the new(ish) treetop walkway and browsed around the Pioneer Women Memorial. Maureen carefully positioned herself downwind of the main fountain jets to get a cooling drench.
Saturday Joseph and I went to the RAAF Association Museum at Bull Creek and inspected the various aircraft and associated displays. After that it was on to Fremantle where we parted company and I went back to Curtin Uni to join Maureen for JAFWA.
Sunday was preparing the financial statement and then the WASFF meeting. In the evening J & J took us to the Piazza del Sol for some very nice Italian food. I had Capretto which was very nice (that is baby goat).
Monday was deliving J & J to the bus terminal and then job interviews and assorted stuff. The interviews went very well. One of the jobs is preferrable but both a good. One position means 6 months in Canberra and the other is a permanant position in Melbourne. Sigh, not much hope of any position in Perth.
Tuesday was spent recovering and trying to shake off lost sleep with some desultory programming for FitG.
Today ... I awoke really early with a substantial amount of bushfire smoke playing havoc with my nose even through the CPAP machines filters. I got up and took some anti-histamines but failed to get any more useful sleep. I guess that either the fires in the Darling Scarp have jumped the containment lines or the firebug has lit a new set. At present the smell of wood-smoke is heavy in the air and the sky is covered by smoke haze.

Edited by author 17-01-2005 11:35
Fri AM 14/01
Thanks for the wishes Poss. 8-).
J & J arrived on schedule and are currently ensconced in the visitors bed. As part of the keep-em-awake-until-bedtime routine Maureen dragged out Spirited Away which seemed to go down well. Mass touristy things today and taking Joseph to gaming tonight.

Good luck with the interviews, Steveg. Fingers, knees, eyes crossed.

Wed PM 12/01
I've been frittering around cleaning and sorting stuff for the last couple of days. Nothing particularly exciting. Went to tea at Retro Bettys with Maureen, Leece, and Poss this evening. Used the bike for transport and my legs let me know afterwards. Lordy, how short a time it takes to get out of condition. Couple of interviews coming up next Monday. Yeah! Judith & Joseph due to arrive mid afternoon tomorrow.

Edited by author 10-01-2005 10:15
Mon AM 10/01
Still not too much happening. Swancon 2005 meeting and then JAFWA on Saturday afternoon. Visit to Jesters Pies on Sunday. Various pottering around with the Perl class generator for FitG. Maureen cleaning up the kitchen. Did a pork stir-fry last night. I use the camping stove, an MSR Simmerlight for stir-frys. It is the only thing I have that is hot enough. Yea for a gas stove when the current electric range dies. I want a Wok burner and a simmer ring. Yeah!

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Purely by chance we unearthed the May 1999 edition of Scientific American during the kitchen cleanup. The cover story is "Tsunami: Predicting destruction by monster waves". This article was published about 10 months after the tsunami that destroyed some villages at Sissano in nothern P.N.G.. Predicting tsunamis from the seismic data is a black art. Assumptions have to be made about the amount of surface dispacement that occured during the quake. In all there are at least 10 descriptive parameters of which only 4 can be derived from the seismic data. Initial estimates of tsunami size are often out by a factor of 5 to 10. It is the immediate reaction of residents on costal communities that is instrumental in saving lives. In July 1993 there was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the Sea of Japan. Within 5 minutes of the shock the Japan Meteorological Agency was issuing warnings via TV and Radio. But by then 5 to 10 meter waves were already striking the island of Okushiri. 1,600 townspeople who had fled to high ground immediately they felt the shocks survived. 239 died. In Japan 15% of 150 tsunamis in the last century were "damaging or fatal". In Indonesia the proportion is more than 50% and post disaster interviews indicated that people did not connect the earthquake with the possibility of a tsunami.
The 75% false alarm rate for Hawaii is mentioned in the article and blamed on the fact that only seismometers and tide-gauges were available to report the presence of tsunamis. The USA NOAA was about to deploy 6 ocean bottom pressure transducers in 2000-2001 which was all it could afford. Let us hope that the Australian Government doesn't decide it is all too hard in the future.

Fri PM 07/01
Nothing happening really. I got Subversion up and working and then checked in my work to date for FitG. I can't say that it is any better than CVS except that it versions directories. I need to write a rant on the subject of version management systems. Maureen finally cleared the last of the rogue vegetation from the below ground pond. The puppy next door has a new squeeky toy which sounds a bit like a rainbow lorikeet screech. And the rainbow lorikeets are out gathering the fruit from the umbrella tree.

The Incredibles
Well I enjoyed that. Hmmm, a redneck superhero and a claims assesor to boot. When I saw the boss at the insurance office I immediately thought "John Howard". Heh!. I especially liked the designer: <q>Once, I designed for gods</q>. Yeah , what is there not to like.

Edited by author 06-01-2005 11:33
Thurs Noonish 06/01
Got a fair bit accomplished yesterday. Put up the wall hook M wants in the loo. Baled out a lot of the below ground pond. Cleared an incomplete electronics project from the kitchen table. And cooked lamb shanks for tea ( possibly M's second favourite food after fine chocolates ).

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I've fined out the achitecture for the FitG play system. The core data items will be implemented as Perl objects using a flyweight pattern with coarse persistance and demand loading. The main process is a state machine with each state being implemented in a Perl library that is "required" at runtime if necessary. Each library has two entry points. One is to create the displayed page and the other is to process the user return. This keeps the amount of code to be pre-loaded to an absolute minimum. Fun is going to be building the AI.

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Ah well ... off to see The Incredibles now. 8-)

Now *there's* an incentive to keep pedalling fast if ever I heard one!

Edited by author 05-01-2005 12:53
Wed AM 05/01
The bike trip to Waldeks went well. I snaffled some red bunching onions and a cherry tomato for one of the raised beds and some white yarrow for ground cover around the dwarf crab apple. I came back with a 36 litre bag of sheep manure balanced on the rack behind my head. Worked well as long as I didn't stop long enough for the smell to drift forward.

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Yesterday Maureen casually dropped that Judith and Joseph will be out from England next week and will be stopping with us for a few days. Eh? They were only here a few months ago ( /m30 ). Oh well I'll have to get some of the accumulated backlog of work done.

---

Work on FitG continues. The Imperial setup page is over 100K but it works. Next comes the Imperial stragetic assignment page and then on to the Rebel setup.

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I went googling for the foaming ant spray that worked so well against our resident terror. Along the way I discovered a charming little page about a Japanese lady's struggle with Australian ants. Anyway, diversions aside, I discovered the product that I had used was probably Baygon Ant Foam which is of course no longer available. Spit!

Mon AM 03/01
Spent yesterday lazing around with a foray for mucking about in the garden. Maureen was very diligent, getting into the below ground pool and removing a lot of the plant life that is choking it. M found some tadpoles from this season ... not in any of the ponds. Oh no, nothining so sensible. They were in a pseudo pond constructed from an esky beside the clothes line. When the below ground pool is cleaned up a bit and certified free of Leopard Danios (voracious little buggers, not comunity fish at all) we will use some to repopulate it. More gardening today including a visit to Waldeks. In between, I'm tackling the conversion of Freedom in the Galaxy to a web game.

New years Day
The regular Friday night gaming got extended into a New Years party. Present, apart from myself, were Rob, Leece, Clara, Richard, John S, and for one game Rob's sister Ann. We played NANO Fictionary and Arkham Horror. A good but sedate night was had and we broke up soon after 00:00. Another year down. Mumble to go. Heh!

Dinner
Our peripatetic friend John Samuel is in town and invited us out to dinner last night. I was arranging a location and the favoured restaurant for the desired area was closed so after a little scouting we ended up at Hippo Creek Steakhouse and Grill. When we walked in Maureen said <q>I recognise that pool</q> and we discovered it was downstairs from where we visited Rob and Leece in /m161. Apart from the usuall steaks there were a number of game dishes and som South African specialities. We quickly divided up a game taster ( Buffalo, Crocodile, and Camel ) and some stuffed mushrooms for entree and then moved on to the main course. I had Pork Spareribs in a BBQ sauce based on fruit chutney, John had the Boerwars Baati (S.A. sausage), and Maureen had Ostrich. Everyone enjoyed their food and we had to pass on desert. Prices were about average, $13 to $20pp for entrees and $22 to $30 for mains.

And an enjoyable visit it was too.

8-)

Edited by author 28-12-2004 07:23
Hail?
The esteemed Poss came by on Sunday, introduced us to Manfred and then gave us a lift down to see Rob, Leece, and Ros who were living it up in holiday apartments down at Scarborough. We sat and chatted for a couple of hours while cleaning them out of munchies and then Poss took us home.

---

Yesterday afternoon we had some hail during the thunderstorms or at lest it attempted to hail. Every 10 to 15 seconds a hailstone pinged off the roof among the raindrops. Most melted immediately but we collected one that was over a centimeter across. This is only the second "hailstorm" we have seen in the five years we have been here.

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What can I say about the tsunamis? Such tradegy. Kudos to John Howard for an immediate aid response. Perhaps he could put money into an Indian ocean early warning system as well?

Xmas Lunch
We went off to have lunch with Maureen's family yesterday. I took Chrononauts along and intoduced the nephews to it. Michael, the middle brother, won the first two games and Chris, the eldest, won the third. <q>Bring it back next year</q> they said.
I probably ate too much but I had a good time.

---

Edited by author 26-12-2004 10:07
Happy Midsummer Festival of your choice everyone
Merry Christmas, Rob, Leece, Poss, Clara, Richard, & Gary.

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Poss: Ahh, traditional oats. Yes I remember them. Actually, once you have soaked them overnight they are fine summer eating with a small handfull of chopped dried fruit.
You can come over and introduce you gigolo anytime on or after Boxing day. Maureen has offered lunch. Healthy lunch. I'm just saying that I'm cooking roast leg of lamb Sunday afternoon and you're welcome.

"Tha's no how you make porridge!" she says, quoting an old tv ad.

I like it the old fashioned way - soak the oats overnight in water, next morning add a drop of milk and some salt and bung it in the microwave. Has to be a Scottish microwave, of course.

Will I be able to show you and Maureen Manfred some time this Xmas weekend?

Edited by author 24-12-2004 10:33
Poss: actually that is the way I like it. Especially in recent years now that the diet restricts the sugar intake. I make 2 minute porrige with milk and add a few sea-salt crystals and a teaspoon of caraway or cumin or a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, or whatever. Congratulations on the new car.

Mmmm.......salty porridge!

mmmmmmm.......caraway.

Oatcakes!
In the end I ground up 1 cup of instant rolled oats in the chopper/blender and added another cup of Barley flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 tablespoon of Ghee, and 8 tablespoons of hot water to make a dough. The dough will be crumbly but this turned out a lot crumbly so a little more hot water was added. Roll out to around 3mm thick and cut rounds with a 5-6 cm biscuit cutter. Bake for 15 minutes in a 180°C oven. I thought these were a little salty ... possibly because I used sea salt. Nice with drinkies. This makes about 18 biscuits. I might try making some with whole caraway or cumin seeds.

---

Aieee! There is a Cuthulu worshipper at Kakulis Brothers. I'll get a photo of the evidence to post here when Maureen's camera gets fixed.

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Leece: Maureen says the Butcherbird juveniles have been going wild in Kings Park. Come to think of it the BFCS was probably a juvenile as well.

The butcherbirds have been really going off here.

Edited by author 24-12-2004 08:11
Trill!
The local Black Faced Cuckoo-Shrikes have been in trilling overdrive for the last couple of days. They seem to move to a new area each day and spend a lot of energy sitting around calling with their weird double trill.

---

Went into Perth to raid Kakulis Bros. today. Stocked up on various flours for the bread making and got some almonds for ²/₃^rds what it costs in the local stores. I had hoped to get some real oatmeal to make oatcakes but all they had was rolled oats. Cooking day tomorrow. At least two Christmas buns need to be produced.

On the busses.
I took a ride on the 99 down to SCG Hospital today to return the crutches. On the way I saw an Egret, a White Faced Heron and a bunch of Pacific Black Ducks foraging in the large drain that runs alongside Ellen Stirling Boulevard. On the other side of Lake Herdsman, in another drain, I spotted an Egret and a Spoonbill working side by side.
On the way back I stopped at Herdsman Fresh and stocked up on stuff. Including some low GI foods that might make their way into Maureen's Christmas stocking. She isn't likely to read this so the rest of you keep your mouths shut ok?

---

I keep seeing the posters for The Incredibles. I want to see this but M isn't interested. I'll just have to sneek out one day while she is at work.

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We are re-watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex as it is released by Madman. This is such a cool series and the Yoko Kanno opening and closing tracks are just sooo gooood.

Edited by author 20-12-2004 11:29
Steamboy
We went down to the Luna Outdoors last night and watched Steamboy. Now the LO is not the best place for this film. A lot of the film has low contrast tones which wouldn't be a problem if the screen wasn't also low contrast. Watch this film as an extravaganza of steam powered derring do and be absolutely certain to switch off any memories that you have of physics, history, or steam technology.
I'm having a very hard time putting a finger on what I liked about this film. I did like it ... I just don't know why. The steam technology looks 1930s rather 1860s but coupled with some ship designs that remind me of the Nautilus from the film version of The League of Extroardinary Gentlemen in fact I half expected some league members to turn up. The british battleship is decidedly post Dreadnaught (1906). The whole runaway mill engine scene near the beginning of the film was just strange with the steam regulators flying apart rather than controlling the steam flow and no sign of a safety valve. I swear they have no idea how a steam engine is managed. I lost count of the number of people drenched in what should have been live steam (which is clear) or showered with shards of broken glass who walked out with just dissarrayed clothing. And as for the flailing machinery ... or the steam tower itself ... *sigh*.
Okay ... for all its faults the story is well told. The characters are human. There is a charming naivety and enthusiasm about the technology and some of the ships are downright pretty. The closing credits do a kind of what comes after with plenty more story.
This is not cutting edge reality anime. This is a sophisticated, retro styled, two hour cartoon. Grab the popcorn, park your brain at the door, and enjoy the big screen.

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Leece (Gingerbread): Cute isn't it. I also had a look at the origin site but the pictures were too slow loading to view them all.

---

I have used NFS for years but never has it been so unreliable. I have the Gentoo portage directories which contain the source code NFS mounted from eldred to william while I am compiling a new system for william. Regularly the compilation falls over with permission denied messages from the NFS server. Switching from udp to tcp fixes it. Why? NFS was never this unreliable when I used it before.

Well. I'm boggled. I especially like the fan.

Gingerbread!
Go to Mediatinker and look at the gingerbread.

Boot
I have given Sylpheed the boot as my mailing agent and gone back to Evolution. Not that Sylpheed is a bad mailing agent. It is just that it lacks some features that I have wanted recently like the ability to click through html links that arrive in e-mail and having a mime attachment open in my preferred tool for that type rather than having to manually enter a program name every time I switch between types. Plus Evolution gives me back my links to my Palm III.

---

I might fire up the PowerEdge while Maureen is out at her office party and start configuring the Gentoo distribution. Oops I need to load a multi processer kernel ... and NFS.

Much Pleasanter
Cool and mild with gentle breezes today.

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I discovered purely by accident that SSG is still in business and still with 3 of the core crew. Back in the 70's I met Bill Starke Jnr. through Tau Ceti and when I moved to Canberra I used to drive down Sydney to game with him. Bill in turn introduced me to two of his gaming mates, Roger Keating and Ian Trout who were the founders of SSG. SSG produced a (large) handfull of games and then I lost track of them. I had assumed they had moved offshore when I saw their logo on some games that I knew were US produced.

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I've just wasted about three hours reading the back issues of Seraphic Blue. I'm still a bit confused but it is interesting.

Hot hot hot
And largely humid too. Owww ... the TV just said that today was 41.5°C, the hottest December day for thirty years. Only half a degree off the hottest December day on record.

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Fired up the PowerEdge again last night and reconfigured the SCSI drives to have one raid 5 composed of 4 x 4 Gigabyte disks and two single 8 Gig drives. I may mirror the 8 Gig drives later.

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Still writing job applications - I not getting more than about 4 hours of work per day in this heat.

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Walked down to the shops today without the crutch. A bit tiring but do-able. A heavy shopping bag carries better on the left shoulder than the right ( the right side has the almost healed ribs ).

Monday? They still have Mondays?
Rob and Leece came over yesterday and dropped off a surplus machine for me. The unit is a Dell PowerEdge 4100/200 with dual 200Mhz CPUs and 6 SCSI disks. I fired it up and did a base SuSE 8.2 install to reformat the existing volumes and establish myself as the new root owner. Unfortunately it sounds like a jet taking off in the confines of the study. Definately some fan replacement needs to happen. Also took the oportunity to drag out the defunct Windows box, clean the floor, rationalise the cabling, replace the dodgy old Link World two port KVM switch with a new Aten Master View four port KVM switch [nice!], and finally introduce the new 10/100 ethernet hub. Whew!

---

Loaded up Reach For the Stars into dosbox. Yes! I haven't been able to play this game for yonks. It was originally written for an Apple ][ or Commodore 64 and then later ported to the early PCs. One of a stable of fine games from Strategic Studies Group (SSG) back when they were still an Australian company.

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Off to the grindstone now. I have to go and address the criteria so that my latest job application will get in on time.

Edited by author 11-12-2004 09:21
The ghost of RPGs past.
Rob dug up a what D&D alignment are you quiz. Being an old first edition player I couldnt resist.
You scored as True Neutral. A True Neutral person has two faces- either these people are merely apathetic, preferring to focus their minds on more important things, or these people truly believe in a balance of all things. To these people, there can be no light without some darkness. These people also have no dedication to, or intrinsic distrust of, laws.
True Neutral .. 85%
Chaotic Good .. 80%
Lawful Good .. 60%
Neutral Good .. 50%
Chaotic Neutral .. 45%
Chaotic Evil .. 40%
Neutral Evil .. 35%
Lawful Neutral .. 30%
Lawful Evil .. 25%
What is your Alignment? created with QuizFarm.com
I hope I'm not just apathetic. Oh well.

Edited by author 08-12-2004 08:19
Rolling along
Went for a bike ride yesterday morning. I think I'll do the same today. No great problems with the hip. A couple of more jobs to apply for ... so it goes.

---

I spent some time yesterday getting dosbox working properly and then loaded up some of my old games ( at least the ones on 3.5" floppies ). Gee ... dosbox is ... slow. I'm not sure why it is emulating the CPU. I guess it needs to do that in order to trap all the hardware twiddles. Whatever. Master of Orion is just about playable. Warlords 2 isn't unless you are very patient. Reach for the Stars has some problems with the keyboard but gets further than it did under Win 98. Halls of Montezuma seems just about adequate.

---

After I am back on the employment treadmill I think I might look at upgrading the CPU to something a bit snappier perhaps with a couple of hardware mirrored SATA drives. Rob has a SCSI chained boat anchor waiting in the wings for me. I should get him to deliver it soon.

Naaah
Tried the chocolate black bun recipe again with a cup of leftover mixed fruit instead of currants. Nowhere near as good.

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Started into the 5^th disk of 12 Kingdoms last night. This is definately a fine show. Possibly because it comes from a series of novels that some author spent a lot of care assembling rather than a fixed time , fixed price, script on demand committee.

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Madman has some tasty anime releases coming up in the next few months ... Scrapped Princess runs for 24 eps and starts off looking like swords and sorcery but appearances are decidedly deceptive. Full Metal Alchemist runs for 52 eps and is manic early 20^th pseudo-century with a form of magic called alchemy. Part mystery, part action, and part road movie this show barely pauses to take a breath on its roller coaster ride.

Edited by author 05-12-2004 16:08
What the?
I'm getting funny Capital A circumflex [Â] before the half and the degree symbols in the recipe. Edit entry ... they aren't there. Check page source ... they are there. Hmmmm. Get brainwave and flip character encoding from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8. Presto! They are gone. Check page source again ... nope , nowhere does QuickTopic declare the character encoding. Nor does it preserve the HTML Entity encoding that I used to enter the characters. *Sigh* never be portable when being smart will suffice.

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I like a lot of anime. I introduce friends and colleagues to worthwhile shows. I try and support JAFWA. On Saturday I went to the annual marathon and they were showing 2x2 Shinobuden and Cosplayers. Why do I ever bother?

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John Thompson came by this morning and had a test ride and natter about the trike. I was planning to go on a long ride in October when my contract ended but at this rate it will be mid-summer before I can even think of distance riding.

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Life has been quite terrifying here of late. Maureen has been cleaning up the kitchen. Not that she hasn't been doing an excellent job. It is just the manner of othe operation that is terrifying. *hide*

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We played Arabian Nights again on Friday. I won with some freeloader called Rob trailing along for a so called equal victory. Hah! Gary also played for most of the game but ended up with so many bad statuses that he didn't seem likely to win when he ran out of time. Actually he had the points for a win but wasn't sufficiently in control of his characters actions to succeed unless someone was being very friendly. We were playing multiple statuses for the first time and I ended up Enslaved, Imprisoned, Envious, and Pursued. Enslaved means my destiny points and money go to another player. Imprisoned means I cannot move and my only encounters are with an Hunchback ( the infamous table 86 ). Envious means that the only action I can choose is rob unless that action is not allowed. Pursued means that all my encounters will be with vengeful beings if that condition is allowed. Luckily the hunchback is never vengeful. I eventually managed to rob enough to buy out my Enslavement and then, after a long while, I managed to encounter a hunchback for which rob was not a possible encounter response and managed to finesse a Quest Success result and get out of prison. On my way back to Baghdad I encountered a foolish Efreeteth and managed to get a 'lose a status of your choice' result which put paid to the Pursued. Finally I was able to go 'On Pilgimage' to loose 'Envious' at a cost of some newly acquired destiny points. * Ahhh* character building that's what it is.

Mmmmmm...thanks! It was *so* yummy!

Edited by author 05-12-2004 15:01
Pseudo Black Bun recipe for Leece and Eva

• Take your favourite bread recipe with about 3 cups of flour. The one I used was a multigrain bread wich was part Rye flour and had some Fennel and Caraway seeds as part of the multigrain.
• Process the dough in your bread machine to the end of the first rise.
• Turn out the dough, punch down, and divide into thirds.
• Take two thirds of the dough and knead in; ¹/₃ cup almond slivers or flakes, one cup of currants, and ½ cup of cocoa powder. Form this dough into a compact ball.
• Take the remaining third of the dough and roll or stretch it out into a 30cm circle. Place the ball of dough into the centre of the circle and bring the edges up to cover the ball. Seal the edges.
• Turn the bun over and flatten a little if required. Prick the bun all over with a fork. The tines should go through the outer layer but not too deep into the inner.
• Let the dough rest and rise for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, start the oven pre-heating to 180°C.
• Bake the bun for one hour or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. I use some baking (greaseproof or parchment) paper on a pizza tray.

Edited by author 01-12-2004 21:58
Steveg I came across your website in my serch for info on recumbant trikes. I live in Darlington and am interested in purchasing one. However as they are fairly expensive I would apreciate the oportunity to see one in the flesh and test ride if possible. My email is 'nathealth@wiznet.net.au'. Please contact me if it is possible for me to view yours.
Thank you
John Thompson

Daze of laze
Saturday we decided to set off for JAFWA. We consulted with the Transperth website and tricked it into disgorging some possible bus routes to take us hither and yon. Five minutes before we were about to depart Maureen's brother Ian arrived. M quickly determined that he would give us a lift on his way home so we settled back for some socialising. At JAFWA Dale tapped me to be the doorprize assistant, a rare honour for a male 8-). Dale also offered a lift home which was also much appreciated.

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Monday was Maureen's birthday. I cooked a variation on a Scottish Black Bun in lieu of a birthday cake. The SBB is a bread loaf with dried fruits, nuts, and spices kneaded in and wrapped in a layer of plain dough. Mid-afternoon I had to go off for a job interview (fingers crossed) and I came back via central Perth picking up M's birthday prezzy - an USB 2.0 controller on a PCMCIA card. Eventually remembered to ring Leece who has the same birthday as M.

Edited by author 28-11-2004 08:31
Arabian Nights
After the main horde had departed from the Friday night gaming session, Leece suggested playing their newly acquired copy of Arabian Nights. This was produced by West End Games in the mid eighties. The chief designer was Eric Goldberg at that time probably recently ex the breakup of SPI. In fact a lot of the game components look like they could have been SPI products.
The game feels (and plays) like it was intended to compete with the Infocom text games by being richer and deeper than anything that would fit on a PC of the time. This I think it does admirably. There are a lot of good storylines, the combination of cards, dice, character attributes, and player decisions means that you will seldom have the same encounter and even if you remember a good outcome there is no guarantee you will be able to repeat it.
The characters start in Baghdad and are moved around the map on a network of connections both on land and sea. Travel distance depends on the current wealth of the player. At the end of each turn an encounter card is drawn which will direct the players to a paragraph in the 'story book'. There are a number of possible story links on each card depending on either the location of the encounter or the stage of the game. A dice is rolled and some simple modifiers are added to determine the exact type of encounter ( a Foolish Efreet is not the same as a Vengeful Efreet ) and the player decides how to interact with the encounter ( typically a verb like aid, rob, avoid, examine, etc. ) this yeilds a paragraph entry in the story book which is then modified by another dice roll to keep some uncertainty about the possible outcome. The final entry will have some description to be read out and a range of possible outcomes based on the characters skills.
The whole process plays quickly and is an outstandingly elegant piece of games design. We played for over 3 hours before Leece won. She did extremely well in the first part of the game and then struggled to make her last few victory points. A good four star forgotten classic.

Edited by author 27-11-2004 10:50
Ten day gap
There was a little to-ing and fro-ing about the job. Fujitsu had told Candle that they would be happy to re-hire me back while I was still in hospital so when John said there wasn't any vacancies I mentioned that I needed to talk to Candle and follow up the Fujitsu offer in case they had somthing else in mind. John mentioned this to the on-site Fujitsu guys who queried their office who contacted Candle in a great flap. Turns out they had made the offer without checking with the client. Heh!
At the same time Candle mentioned to me that they had a job for a Change Manager on the books and would I be interested? I did actually give this one some thought as the money was a fair bit less than I had been getting from either Candle or ADI. However after some calculations and a chat with Maureen it seems adequate for our present needs. The problem with the ADI salary was that every year I received a salary increment from the assesment and to a fair extent I priced myself out of the game. And the Candle/Fujitsu/WAPS job was of course priced on a short term contract rate.
So I had an interview on Wednesday which went well and I have another interview with a wider scope on Monday. Looks good so-far.

---

Went to the last itSMF chapter conference for the year on Thurday. Good speakers and some wine and nibblies afterwards. Caught up with some people from WAPS. I need to have a farewell lunch ... after one of them gets back from a(nother) NZ holiday. I handed back my security pass and key-cards and made arrangements for my pile of gear to be transported back here.

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WebMake still needs a bit of tuning. The basic page structures are in production but currently all pages have the same pretty stencil and the page footers are missing. And I haven't written the internal update page to maintain the link register.

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Pulled Blood, Sweat, and Tears, my personal RPG rules, out of limbo and started bashing away at the mechanics again. I would like to get these to a playable state but that means writing down the processes and making sure they work.

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Along the way we hired a film scanner for a week. I didn't have much success getting it working with Vue-Scan but Maureen was beavering away, mostly happily, on her laptop scanning negatives from her overseas holidays in the 1980's. Now she wants a PCMCIA based USB 2.0 hub to speed up her (hypothetical) next scanning session.

There's a view up here
I spent most of yesterday climbing the learning curve for WebMake. I've had the program for a while but up to now I had only produced a fragmentary configuration. So ... a few dozen experiments later I have something that works. Along the way I even cleaned up the translation of the QuickTopic message references so that they work. I still have to finish converting all the existing pages and then I can go and update all the links that I have been holding off adding.

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E-mailed my ex-boss on Monday and they said they didn't have a position for me c'est la vie. Anyone need a config manager?

Good luck Steveg with the crutch ditching! Not long now!

Ramping up ...
Last Friday the GP gave me a conditional OK to go back to work. The condition being that I stick to half days until the end of the year. One more check-up on the 19^th to check the status of my hip and I may b able to ditch the crutches. Waiting with bated breath.

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We had an unexpected visit from Joe Blake yesterday. Joe is the man who first exposed me to the concept of recumbent bikes back in the '80s. He was also the person who gave me a test ride on his Greenspeed. A while later his trike was stolen and went missing for several years. Then I spotted the distinctive early model frame in a frame-builders and Joe and his Greenspeed were re-united. In appreciation Joe offered me a bottle of one of his fine home made liqueurs. Time passed and I forgot to collect and then Joe turned up to deliver. Mmmmm thanks Joe.

Hee hee.

Buses? We don't need to steenkeeng buses!

I believe it was the one we followed, Poss. It got away from us though, didn't it?

Bus
Many of the newer buses go in for violent maneuvers. The 98/99 busses do go past Belmont forum so you might well have encountered them. I haven't managed to ride on one of the hydrogen fuelled buses yet. I've seen a couple doing CAT duty but always when jumping on for a ride would have been inconvenient. For my money hydrogen fuel cells are probably not the way to go. Too much finnicky infrastructure needed to handle the hydrogen.

Was that the one we followed when we went to Reading Cinema to see Hellboy?

Some of those 99/98 buses can really be violent stopping and turning corners, you sometimes need to brace yourself.

Moving in circles
On Friday Maureen and I went for a cruise on the route 99 bus. This bus does an irregular circuit through the Perth suburbs at an rough radius of about 10 kilometers from central Perth.
We each purchased a $7.50 all day ticket and grabbed a local bus to a nearby circle route stop. After missing one bus because the stop we were at wasn't a route 99 pickup point we were off to Fremantle. We spent an hour or so having a light lunch and wandering around central Fremante before getting back on the bus and continuing the circuit. Unfortunately the bus we were on got an over temperature alarm but at this point the next bus, supposedly 15 minutes behind, had caught up and everyone transferred. Now the bus we were on was getting a double load of passengers and sliping its schedule and the next bus caught up and overtook us. Eventually both busses pulled into the Morley bus station which is about 180 degrees around the route from Fremantle. At this point we escaped into the Galleria shopping center for a comfort stop and more coffee. A little more shopping was indulged in and we hopped back on anothe number 99 bus for the trip on to Stirling station. Here we transferred back to a local bus to get home.
Like with the trip to Mandurah my hip was aching by the end of the day. It doesn't like the enforced sitting coupled with mild vibration. Despite that a good outing was had by all.

Away on the briny shallow
Leece's mum, Ros, came by at 08:30 this morning and picked up Maureen and I for a drive down the coast. One more short detour to collect Poss and then 50 Km down to the end of Kwinana freeway then about 10 Km to Mandurah town center. At the town jetty was the houseboat Rob and Leece had hired for a week's cruising. After a short tour of the boat we motored out to the edge of Peel Inlet and stopped at one of the islands for lunch. After consuming fine barbecued sausages with various trimmings we motored back to town and said farewell to R&L. Various birds were spotted along the way including, some waders that you don't normally get on the Perth waters, a pair of Ospreys with nest, some Fairy Terns, and more Cormorants and Pelicans than you could safely poke a stick at.

Flashback VI
Towards the end of my second week the trachaeotomy tube came out and I switched to solid foods. When the Dietician first came by I mentioned that I had been under dieticians orders before the accident and that I was find the food to be much richer than what I was used to. Not that I normally live a life of asceticism and self denial but I had purged most of the sugar and fat from my regular meals. So the Dietician was pleased to set up my usual morning and afternoon mini-meals in additian to the usual three.
It was arranged to shift me up to one of the regular Cardio-thoracic wards to look after the ribs but when I arrived the nurses were unhappy with the Bi-PAP machine and after sitting around for a few hours I was sent back to a respiratory ward. Later that afternoon the Ward Sister came by and explained that there was a shortage of Bi-PAP machines and asked if I minded shifting to my own CPAP machine earlier than planned. When we opened the bag we found that Maureen hadn't emptied the humidifier and the mask and tubes were regular mould colonies. After an hour or so of scrubbing and soaking on the part of the Sister my machine was finally pronounced fit to use. Bliss ... Joy ... I slept well that night with my own machine set to the right pressure with a far better humidifier than the disposable hospital units. Ahhh.

On yer bike ...
Put the rear wheel back on the bike ... everything seems to be turning smoothly and the gears all appear to work only the ratchet seems a little noisy when I'm coasting or back peddling. I think we can call that one a success.
At the same time I rigged up the mount for the GPS on top of the left kingpin extention tube. When the 12V system is in place the GPS will be powered off of an aux power takeoff.
After all that work I had to ride the trike up and down the driveway for twenty minutes until I felt the the gears were sufficiently tested. I was very happy that my legs seemed to be working correctly as well.

Flashback V
Once I was moved up to the Respiratory HDU everything hinged on the state of the pelvis fracture. When I left ICU I was under orders not to be sat up at more than 45 degrees. This sounds simple but the angle at which I was actually permitted to sit varied widely from nurse to nurse. Eventually one afternoon I was suddenly sent down to have a CT-Scan. Next morning the word came down that I was to be allowed to sit up. Yes! From there things moved quickly. All it takes is one visit to the shower to vastly improve ones outlook on life. Within a couple of days the Speech Therapist came by to see if I could swallow semi-solids. They do this by feeding you a spoonfull or two of red gell. If you can't control the swallow and the gell gets in the lungs then the colour is highly visible and the material won't cause any problems. The gell is successively diluted in about three stages down to cordial consistancy. If you can handly the thinnest dilution you are cleared for non-solid hospital meals.

Time passes ...
Okay ... I'm still here. Still hobbling around with the aid of one crutch and a supply of painkillers. I have a new set of distance glasses and I can get around fine on public transport. The downside is a sore elbow and problems concentrating which is part of the reason why I haven't been on-line much.

---

I bit the bullet a few days ago and took the rear wheel off the trike intending to get it serviced. However, none of the bike shops in reasonable public transport distance wanted to know. In the end I dismantled the hub myself, cleaned out the gunk, re-greased everything in sight, and re-assembled the works. I just hope I have spread enough grease in the right places. I cant road test it until I can ditch the crutch.

Snooooze
*sigh* fail to be on-line for a few days and everything backs up until it threatens to engulf one in a deluge.

---

Had my GP checkup last Thursday. He says keep taking the painkillers and come back and see me in four weeks. Went into central Perth yesterday. Walking around getting my bank account sorted and my replacement long-distance glasses ordered was fine, however, sitting in the bus station on the hard wooden seat was not at all fun.

You were obviously having far too much fun with it, that's why they took it away.

Flashback IV
About the time I moved from ICU to the Respiratory HDU I was also allowed to switch to a Swedish Nose for daytime breathing rather than being continually on the respirator. A Swedish Nose looks like a short piece of horisontal tubing clipped to the front of the tracheotomy tube. It contains a couple of pads of a felt like material that capture some of the moisture in your breath as you breath out and then moisten the air and oxygen mixture that you breathe in. This makes breathing a lot more comfortable.
I mentioned last time that I had been given a Fentanyl PCA pump. This was with me for about 5 or 6 days. After about 4 days I started to get some noticable side effects. There are a whole range of physical side effects which I mostly skipped (or they were effectively controlled by other medication) but I got hallucinations. The form these took was quite interesting. Have you ever been awake in a dark room trying to make sense of the shapes you can barely see? My mind seems to go through a process of successively trying to match solutions to the shape until it finds one that it is happy with. Under the influence of Fentanyl my mind became quite unable to reject unsuitable solutions. Since I had lost my glasses in the crash there was a lot of my world that was half formed and not instantly recognisable. And the hallucinations that got generated were quite stable. Every time I looked at the far wall of the ward I marvelled at the way the Bi-PAP machines had been decorated to look like large animal skulls and the array of art neuvo styled goth-puppets draped over the ledges ... not to mention the Samurai doll with yellow hair and a red coat like Inu-Yasha. The CT-Scanner room had a stuffed magpie up in one corner of the room with a lizard in its beak. Alas when my spare glasses arrived all these intruiging artworks proved to be totally non-existant. And shortly after that they took the PCA pump away.

Slackness Abounds
Well it has been an acceptably busy week at this end even if I haven't posted anything.
E-mail is now operational under Gentoo so I won't need to keep going back to SuSE to read my mail. I eventually decided to give Fetchmail et al the flick and use Sylpheed's internal MTA facilities to pass stuff to and fro. However I will run up ssmtp which is a minimal outgoing only SMTP agent.

---

It is almost two weeks since I came home and I had my first out-patient checkup today. The doctor was happy with my progress but wants me to keep using the crutches for at least six weeks more. I also got my first look at the hip X-ray. When I am standing upright, facing left, the upper fracture intersects the hip socket at about two o'clock. Luckily that means it is mostly off the main load bearing surface. The X-ray machine operator also commented that it was a pretty nasty fracture.

---

The people at work got together and bought me a copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book is a delightful romp through the history of science dealing more with the people than the discoveries. Excellent reading albeit with the occasional technical error that has bypassed the proofreaders.

---

There are a couple of pages in the book on Thomas Midgley. Midgley is surely a contender for the title of Scientest most likely to have sold his soul to the devil. During the 1920's he discovered that Tetraethyl Lead was an effective anti-knock fuel addative for petrol engines. When concerns were raised about the lead content he proceeded to hold press conferences to demonstrate the safety of the compound. This at a time when he had been seriouslly ill from over-exposure and had to be careful to stay well away from the substance between press conferences.
Then to cap things off Midgely went on to discover and promote chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) starting with Freon-12 in the early 1930s.

Edited by author 01-10-2004 18:19
Flashback III
They kept me in ICU until the 9^th or 10^th. I seemed to cause great amazement because I was able to wield the suction line to clear the saliva from my mouth this was seen as a sign that I needed to be moved on.
A couple of days previously they had fitted me with a Patient Controlled Analgesic (PCA) unit that gave me a shot of Fentanyl when I pressed the button. Pity it spent more time alarming than dispensing. The pump unit wants one of a very specific set of syringes so that it can meter the dose accurately. Unfortunately the common syringe of the right volume isn't a model that the pump knows about. It took 3 shifts to work that one out and it needed to re-solved every time a new set of nurses needed to change the syringe.
The BiPAP machine continued to cause problems. I had become habituated to the pressure settings but the cold un-humidified air was playing havoc with my throat. A sore throat and an elevated temperature became a continual state.

---

Currently I'm at home resting. I can get around handily on a pair of elbow crutches with the added assist of some pain killers. I read a bit, watch TV a bit, play on the computer a bit, and exercise a bit. Rob and Leece kindly sprited Maureen and myself off to Plaka by the Sea Wednesday evening for a welcome change of scenery. Our neighbour Eva kindly shuttled me to the doctors yesterday which is just too far to walk yet so close that taxis grumble about the short trip.

The written-off car at the assessors.

I'm very glad you've come out of things okay!

Edited by author 28-09-2004 16:47
Flashback II
I woke up in ICU sometime Saturday and found a bunch of tubes attached to my arms and also a set dissapearing down my mouth. Got a brief run down of my injuries and current location. Late Saturday or early Sunday it was decided to take out the mouth tubes and switch me to a BiPAP machine. Unfortunately the ICU staff didn't seem to be BiPAP savvy and wanted to experiment with the settings. At one point the pressure was turned up so high that my cheeks were trying to explode past the edges of the mask at another point the nurse was saying "Breathe slowly Mr Gunnell" which of course you can't do when the intake pressure is set too high. As soon as you start to draw a breath the machine fills your lungs to capacity at which point the machine drops the pressure and it is hard not to breathe out. That was the worst damn birthday I can remember. Sometime Sunday evening everyone recognised that this wasn't working and the doctors decided to put in a tracheotomy tube and let me breathe through that.

Flashback I
Friday 3^rd September. Start the day by driving to work as is usual for a Friday. Maureen is about to start her first day on a new contract. I sort of remember prepping for work but the morning was quite unmemorable. The next thing I remember is an insistant voice saying "Keep your head up", "don't go to sleep now!". Thank you voice whoever you were. I can hear talking in the background but the words don't actually make much sense. I can sort of see Maureen beside and in front of me. I reach accross to touch her leg and say "I think we've had an accident". There is an almighty crunching sound as the rescue workers cut away the car doors. I sort of remember being transferred to an ambulance stretcher and the scene ends.

Just arrived back home today after 22 days in hospital. More catch-up later.

Nice to see you back in the real world. Welcome back.

Steveg has been off in hospital after a little argument with a 4wd who wasn't sure about the correct protocol at a give way sign. I have a bunch of broken ribs and a sore pelvis. I am likely to be sent home this weekend (25th). Many thanks to everyone who visited, sent flowers, or cards. More details when I get access to a real connection.

Oh, congratulations! Streamers and bunting and fireworks and stuff! Scantily clad ladies jumping out of Black Forest Cakes and all that! Well done!

Wed PM 01/09:
Hooray ... first posting from Firefox and Gentoo Linux 2.67. Added BIND9 and it all works. Next stop set up mail and then a firewall.

---

Wonderful Spring day today. Just a scattering of clouds to let you know it isn't summer. Not to mention the other fact that it is about 20 degrees centigrade cooler than summer.

Tues AM 31/08:
Setting up pap-secrets fixed the disconnection problem. Now, I think, all I have to do is fix resolv.conf to get the applications talking across the link. I'll probably do that be setting up Bind as I do on the SuSE installation and put some entries in ip-up and ip-down to switch things on and off. Setting up Gentoo certainly has been a re-learning experience. I had forgotten exactly how many mysterious incantations get hidden behind the candy coated administration tools.

---

The quicktopic archive script has had some debugging and the archives are starting to format properly (before this debug session some line breaks were getting lost).

---

The gear-hub on my bike really needs a strip and clean. The gear change mechanism is all gummed up and won't properly go into top gear. I'll have to dose it with CRC 5.56 again as a temporary measure.

Edited by author 30-08-2004 10:08
Mon 30/08:
Friday night went well. We played Britannia which is a boardgame about the history of Britain from the Roman invasion to the conquest by William the Conquerer. Each player controls a sequence of tribes and nations defending, raiding, and invading as their particular fortunes rise and fall. This time I was the red player who starts the game with the Brigantes who are sandwiched between the Belgae in the south and the Picts in the north. The ususal Brigante pattern is fight a delaying action against the Roman legions and submit to Roman rule as soon as it is permitted. This time I decided to go North and carve a new territory in Pictish lands. This worked and upset the game. The Blue player (Gary) lost points that the Picts would have gained, the Purple player's (Leece) Romans had an insecure Northern border and lost allied points, and the Green player (Rob) made some initial gains but suffered later from having a strong (red) Irish and Saxon presence.

---

Kudos to Rob for remembering that users must have write access to /var/lock to use the serial port. I was a member of the right group but the group did not have write rights. Now I have to work out why Westnet keeps hanging up the modem. I suspect pap-secrets and/or chap-secrets are not set up.

Edited by author 26-08-2004 12:55
What on earth do they put in there?
Poss: I wouldn't be suprised. But I think your scale is off. Try: an entire walk in wardrobe possibly with an attached en-suite and a dining room with a 6 course banquet waiting to be served. Add assorted servants and possibly the kitchen sink to clean up afterwards.

---

To add insult the compile of Open Office failed miserably. The start-up warns that OO is very fragile with respect to compiler optimisation flags. To me this just seems like bad programming. It smacks of developers that are relying on side effects or particular code generation effects for "high performance" results.

---

The Sylpheed recompile worked nicely. I have a browser, I have a mail reader. Now if I can just work out why wvdial is rejecting any attempts to connect to the modem I would be laughing.

"What on earth do they put in there?"

Some clean underwear; a raincoat, just in case; some sandwiches in case the download gets hungry. 12 hours is a long time!

Wed AM 25/08
Finished the re-compilation of everything that Sylpheed depends on sometime during the night. As I had to switch OS's to check my mail I decided to kick off the OpenOffice source download. To check the prerequsites and download size we run emerge --pretend --verbose openoffice. About 20 Mb ... no problems. However when the actual download happens it reports 220 Mb with a download duration of a fraction under 12 hours. *sigh* OpenOffice is going to account for nearly half the total source code volume on the system. What on earth do they put in there?

Edited by author 24-08-2004 10:24
Tues AM 24/08:
Gentoo continues to not quite work ... Sylpheed (and Spruce) keep throwing illegal instructions. So I am recompiling the complete tool tree with my current set of compilation flags. Fingers crossed. I guess it keeps me off the streets 8-/.

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Welcome bcak to Lukasz who has recently re-built his blog page, Dwarf's Corner and is including his new wife, Alexsandra, as a corespondant. It seems like every time I look he as a new design up.

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Over at Gary's Boring Blog I have been following the progress of their baby daughter. Sadly Rosie has just lost her battle against a malformed heart. It is strange, I have never met these people, they don't know me, and yet I know them better than I do the people two houses in any direction from home. I feel sad for Gary and Megumi and yet there are many worse happenings in the world every day that don't cause any noticable emotion. Maybe it is the same as reality TV, with people who want to be voyeurs, to experience life without taking any risks. *sigh* This is getting all too deep for me, I'm going to go and send them a sympathy message anyway.

Edited by author 23-08-2004 10:08
Mon AM 23/08
We are about two weeks away from implementing the HP OpenView Configuration Management Data-Base pilot at work. So work is a continual round of review and adjust.

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After two weeks of intermittant downloading and compiling I've almost conquered the Gentoo installation process. My system dual boots into either SuSE or Gentoo and the Gentoo version runs with a 2.6.7 kernel and Gnome. I used the gnome-light package which works without a lot of the extras. I've been doing a lot of dependency comparisons an it looks like I'll run Mozilla-Firefox as the browser and Spruce or Sylpheed as the mail agent. Gentoo uses the X code from Xorg-X11 rather than XFree. X setup is normally a pain but it went quite smoothly. Xorg -config didn't quite cut it but the semi-manual configurator worked well.

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I think the Galahs in the Plane tree have an offspring. The front looks a little too grey for an adult and it isn't attempting to fly. However, it is nearly ready to leave and it looks the size and almost the colour of an adult so I can't be sure.

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Saw Hellboy on Sunday morning. Not quite what I expected but good enough. They have conflated a few characters and story lines but if Mike Mignola is happy then I'm not about to complain. Ron Pearlman made a fine Hellboy and the actor who played Abe Sapiens was wonderful.

Tues AM 10/08:
Waiting patiently for the 18^th to come around. That is the release date for Madman's August titles. This month we are after Twelve Kingdoms and Witch Hunter Robin. Both of them are top series. Interesting characters, good storylines, beautiful animation, and interesting settings. This is the payoff for enduring the dross.

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Stupid Evolution has crashed again while I was writing this. Possibly next weekend I'll start the compilation tasks for the Gentoo distribution. I'm looking foward to a having a low-latency 2.6 kernel.

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There is a Black Faced Cuckoo-Shrike come by to perch on the power lines in the first rays of the morning sun. Perch ... semaphore with wings ... warble ... peer about ... shift ... repeat.

Sun PM 08/08:
Friday night gaming saw our old opponent John Samuel visiting from the wilds of the East. We played Citadels, Chrononauts, and Pirate's Cove. I won Chrononauts so I went home happy. Mind you I did pretty dismally at everything else.

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I took the first steps to creating a Gentoo Linux distribution today. A couple of partitions were backed up and re-sized and the starter CD image downloaded (4 hours worth). Gentoo is set up as a source based distribution. It needs a lot more setup and compilation than many of the other installations but you get a vastly more streamlined result. Next step is to burn a starter CD and set up a minimal system that will dual boot with my existing SuSE system. I'm going to try and move to a 2.6 kernel at the same time.

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I went to the local Harvey Norman's (Australian retail superstore) on Saturday to get printer ink refills. The price was about what I would pay elsewhere but there was an extra 15% discount if I purchased 3 or more cartridges. This just made it worthwhile dealing with a chain that I normally avoid like the plague.

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With no JAFWA Saturday I cooked a Roast leg of lamb with garlic. Mmmmm. Roast carrot, pumpkin, and onions. Also corn on the cob and a couple of baby grilled eggplant. Ahhhh. I used to like doing legs of mutton because, it is cheap, the meat has more flavour, there is more of it, and where possible I prefer to let the animal have a life before it gets turned into my dinner. However, of late, the price of mutton has gone out of sight. Part of this has been the reduced flocks of wool producing sheep. But there has been an overall reduction in sheep numbers all over.

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Saturday night we watched Wonderful Days a Korean animated film. We were reminded of an amalgam of Ghost in the Shell, Wings of Honneamise, Green Legend Ran, and a bit of Ben Elton's Stark. After an ecological catastrophe a refuge city is created for a social elite. The city is built around a power source derived from the pollution itself. Wonderful Days is set in the closing days of the city when the pollution is almost exhausted and the protagonists face personal and ethical conflicts while attending to the birth of a new age. All I can say is I don't think everyone dies.

Edited by author 05-08-2004 15:35
Found this fun little quiz on Laura's Blog. My result was:
Category IV - The Musketeer
You have a small, highly edited social group, and you like it that way.
What Type of Social Entity are You? brought to you by Quizilla

Thurs AM 05/08:
Well that was a busyish week. Looking back I don't think I accomplished much but it certainly flled the time. I am actually busy at work as well which helps a lot.

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Never again will I try and play an 8 player game of Attack! This game just does not scale. Two turns in 5+ hours. And I had to proxy the second turn so that I could get home in time to get to JAFWA. Still Rob did really well especially as my major tactic card couldnt be played in the order I wanted because it would have ended the game. Well done Rob.

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Due to my sleeping in several times I have not gone in by bike for nearly a week now. However, that has meant an oportunity to catch up with the nesting Galahs. The pair are still there but no sign of any young peeking from the nest. I can't find any details in the bird books about the development period for Galah chicks but I think they should be fairly active by now.

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"Lake Trinity" ebbs and refills as the rain comes and goes. No resident Mountain ducks at the moment but a pair of Wood ducks were keeping watch.

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Saw Triplets of Bellville on Monday evening. Very coool, very wacky, it reminds me a lot of the pen and wash cartoons that you used to get in upmarket journals come to life.

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I've been working my way through re-reading Sherri S. Tepper's True Game books. I have two collected editions; The True Game, and The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped as well as the last book of the third trilogy Jinian Footseer. I must go looking to see if Ms. Tepper has a website. My favoutite book of hers is Raising the Stones which is part of the loose story cycle that starts with Grass and ends with Sideshow.

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Got a fair bit of mangling done to the QuickTopic archive script done recently. The results can be found on the archive page.

Well, *someone* made something of a comeback in Attack!: The Expansion yesterday. Well done. Your secret sacred instructions to Rob must've worked. Final scores are on Rob's blog.

Wed AM 28/07:
BLAM! Another month gone. Where? How? Oh! Well never mind. Being flat out at work doesn't encourage me to sit down and do all the accumulated virtual maintenance here.

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Two of my freinds that get regular mention on these pages Rob and Leece have started pseudo blogging.

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Slightly less cold yesterday morning 1.4 ° C. My back wasn't feeling the best so I wimped out and took the car. Much nicer getting home not mentaly and physically tired.

Tues AM 27/07:
0.4 Degrees C was yesterdays minimum. The coldest morning for twenty something years according to the weather report. Strangely enough it was only my fingers that were causing a problem. My feet were fairly warm because of the activity in the leg muscles and they were also out of the wind behind the sandal soles. Ears were protected by a Polartec headband thingie. And the nose just wasn't noticeably complaining for which I am not complaining at all. I have also successfully used a Polartec scarf to keep my chin warm but that is a little too bulky and didn't actually seem needed.

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Stayed up far too late last night finishing a re-read of The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Definitely a top read. I spootted a few lead-ins to Paladin of Souls that I had missed previously. I just like the theology and the whole discussion about the nature of saints. Now if only the real world was a bit more like that.

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I need to get into the web pages and do a bit of a pre-spring clean. I have a bunch of links that need to be added and a few that need removing. Configuration Management needs to be split to it's own page in preparation for some content. And the list keeps going. I also need to get back to finishing the archive formatter and doing something about the page manager. *sigh*

How's your nose? Has it unfrozen?

Edited by author 26-07-2004 09:59
Good things come in threes, don't they?
First breath steaming morning today. The forecast was for 1 Degree C. Even with an extra layer of polyproplyne underclothes I was in no way toasty warm. In fact my fingertips felt like they were being gnawed off. Then the number 15 bus tried to kill me by passing on a narrow street and pulling into a bus-stop just in front of me. That sure did perk my heart up and suddenly my fingers weren't at all cold. Then as I was nearing the end of Aberdeen street a courier busy talking on his mobile phone threw his car door open directly in front of me. Being on a quiet road I swerved and missed by a whisker. Then as I was at the top of the Claisebrook overpass ramp a wedgie rider coming in the opposite direction cut the corner right in front of me. Then as I was turning onto Royal street the car in front of me suddenly turned left accross the front of me without indicating.
To all these people: "Thank you, I'm awake now". 8-)

Sat PM 24/07:
Two and a half days of periodic rain. Some of it quite heavy. "Lake Trinity" has recharged and on Friday I saw my first ducklings for the season. Six little fuzzballs that are baby Pacific Black Ducks. Also a largish raptor cruising about ... It wasn't quite identifiable ... possibly a Little Eagle or a Square Tailed Kite ... that kind of short square cut tail.

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Last night was the rematch of the Age of Mythology boardgame.Same crew with Richard added. and again we had to break up just before the game played out. Gary had most victory points from largest army. Leece was second with most buildings and then Rob and myself with a few points each from winning battles. I was on the way up with buildings and if I hadn't misplayed my first build card on the last round I would have equaled Leece for buildings.

Regarding those inconsiderate religious drivers: Maybe they're just trying to put the fear of God into us...

Edited by author 21-07-2004 07:55
Wed AM 21/07:
Wild and Woolly weather outside. Not much in the way of rain but the winds are strong enough that I am thinking riding is going to be a losers game.

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The puddle that I have been calling "Lake Trinity" has almost dried up. The Mountain Ducks have shifted to cropping grass and the evening shift of Wood Ducks seem to have been mostly replaced by Pacific Black Ducks.

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Monday night as I was riding home a car came up behind me, slowed down, and then, at the narrowest point of the road and as I was passing a parked car, passed me. Further up the road it turned into the local convent. A little further on at the Church associated with the convent another car, coming from the opposite direction, cut the corner at a higher than safe speed to turn into the church driveway before I passed. Unfortunately I had to slam on the brakes to avoid running into the side of the car. I guess being devout doesn't make you a good or considerate driver. 8-(

Edited by author 19-07-2004 08:22
Mon AM 19/07:
Another weekend has whistled by. Where do they all go?

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Friday night was playing Taj Mahal a Rudolf Knizia designed strategy game set in 18^th Century India where powerful nobles contest for influence in the court of the Moghul emperors. I managed to just beat out Rob at the last turn. Making this the first time I have won this game.

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Saturday was shopping and then going to JAFWA.

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Sunday was the WASFF meeting and cooking Tamatar Ghosht, Same Bhaji, and Khatti Toor Dal Tarka. All from Joyce Westrip's Moghul Cooking. Strangely enough this had nothing to do with Fridays litle win. This is one of my most used cookbooks.

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Fridays little dentist trip went well. The broken filling was replaced with no more than mild discomfort. Modern laser based dentistry tools greatly reduce the amount of drilling. The filling was Fujibond which I googled to find:

Resin-modified glass-ionomer (RMGI) adhesive agents are very limited in number, but are mentioned here for completeness. RMGI adhesives, such as Fujibond LC (GC America, Alsip, IL), consist of a mild conditioner and a glass-ionomer adhesive that is mixed and applied in two steps. Potential advantages include chemical as well as mechanical bonding and fluoride release. However, like the self-etching adhesives, very little clinical data is available.

Fri PM 16/07:
No Age of Mythology rematch tonight. Gary has been offspringed (offsprung?) and can't attend. However next week has been mooted.

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Off to the dentist this morning. Oh Joy! As it turned out I didn't have any more problems with toothache. A good thing too I say.

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Lukasz, who is taking his ease in Tunisia, spotted the London Natural History Museum's Endeavour Botanical Illustrations virtual display.

Wed AM 14/07:
My tooth started twinging yesterday and the dentist appointment isn't until Friday ... I'm going to be carrying a bottle of clove oil for the next couple of days.

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The nocturnal shift of wood ducks was out in force last night. As the puddles recede and expose the fresh grass the wood ducks are here in force to reap the bounty. The daytime mountain ducks appear to be filter feeders they hold their beaks almost horizontal and sweep their head back and forth in a manner reminiscant of a spoonbill. The swallows are also out in force during the daytime swooping and zooming over any puddle of standing water.

Tues AM 13/07:
Rematch is good. I'll have some idea of what I'm doing this time. All you have to do is persuade Gary to bring it. Oh and text Richard and Clara to be there by 8PM if they want to play. 8-)

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Despite all the rain not much seems to have reached the dams. I'm sure I can remember soaking rain lasting two to three days at a time when I was young. Now it seems to be the front comes through and it is all over in 4 hours or so.

Edited by author 12-07-2004 18:25
Re: That evil game of Age of Mythology. He's being modest. He woulda won. I'm sure I would've come second though.
Rematch! Rematch!

Edited by author 12-07-2004 08:37
Sun PM 11/07:
Watched the last episode of Seven Wonders of the Industrial World a short time ago. I might be just imagining things but there does seem to be a strong subtext about the danger these projects present to their workers. And the Engineers mentality seems to be that each project is the justification for the employment of any available means. This weeks episode was on the Hoover dam. I've seen documentry footage on the building of the dam before but not with this much detail about the living and working conditions.

Edited by author 11-07-2004 23:24
Sat AM 10/07:
Played Age of Mythology boardgame last night with Rob, Leece, and Gary. The supposed two hour playing time stretched for five hours and we were probably only a turn from the official end when we finished at 1AM. Possibly I was going to win on the basis of 'most buildings' but Leece might have taken out 'the wonder', or Rob with "largest army". Gary was in the unfortunate position that he was being raided by both Rob and myself because he had things we wanted and Leece didn't. This is another beer and pretzels game like Attack. Good fun and a wide range of possible strategies.

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Leece: My calculator reckons that tank as 47 weeks worth of drinking water. A good reserve.

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Six Black Swans, eight Mountain Ducks, and a loafing pair of Wood Ducks lurking near "Lake Trinity" yesterday lunchtime.

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Found a nice little Japanese restaurant called "U" in Royal street East Perth. Nice food ... fairly standard range ... very small premises.

The tank is 1200 litres. It never really got empty last year...
I "go to the well" and fill 18 litres of water containers for the kitchen about every 5 days, which we use for drinking, coffee, tea etc. It doesn't get the kettle all scaley or the coffee maker either which is a bonus. So I guess it could be calculated ... but not by my pitiful maths skills.

I had drained off a third of it to the front pond, because I knew big rain was coming, and the white cloud mountain minnows needed topping up with some non-yucky water.

Edited by author 09-07-2004 16:06
Fri AM 09/07:
Leece: Not to worry, just Steveg being dour. How long does 400 litres last the three of you for drinking water?

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I've noticed that I'm not logging in quite so regularly now that I'm not playing Civilisation: Call to Power by e-mail. Between that and work ramping up I am not quite so moved to post regularly. And did I mention it is dark nasty winter here? No getting up at 05:00 for a couple of hours at the computer at this time of year!

Edited by author 08-07-2004 09:58
I knew what you meant, I was just making a feeble attempt at humour. :-) This rain has been pretty impressive, in the past 24 hours I have managed to collect what must be over 400 litres in the rainwater tank. It's overflowing now, onto the mandarin tree.

Edited by author 07-07-2004 21:09
Wed PM 07/07:
Wild and woolly weather outside. I'm still managing to avoid riding through the worst weather so far. Bound to trip up soon though.

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Left work in the near-dark (6pm) on Monday and as I rode past "Lake Trinity" I could vaugely see a horde of wood ducks feeding there. I had noticed earlier that the population does seem to go up come nightfall but never to this degree.

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Major tooth collapse tonight ... I'm going to have to make an appointment with the dentist tomorrow.

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Leece: I'm distracted by pretty pictures I can see not by untrustworthy claims of pretty pictures. Actually the pictures were the various interesting attempts of Panorama tools to stitch the sculpture panorama from the front of Midland Railway Workshops. I guess they owed more to Cubism than photorealism 8-(.

Look Steveg! A pretty picture!!!! Bwwahhahahaah!

Edited by author 05-07-2004 08:18
Mon AM 05/07:
Gah! Nearly a week with no updates. I fear I must claim operating system updates, earache, distractracion by pretty pictures, and general slackness.

---

I got to test out my wet weather plans last Thursday ... riding home in light rain worked well. All I need now is some goggles to keep the rain off my glasses and perhaps some gloves. For the Goggles I am tending towards a set of clear lens Skiing goggles. The gloves will probably also have to be ski wear as well.

---

I have been playing with Panorama Tools with PTStitcher and PTPicker. This is a lot better than Pandora but without the fancy front ends it is not at all user friendly. I highly recommend Big Ben's Panorama Tutorials which contain lots of useful information about getting Panorama Tools to work. I'm still working on getting a panorama to stitch without some pieces going off into distortion. *sigh*

---

The idiot from /m64 was back last Tuesday. If you are near the intersection of Aberdeen and William streets in Northbridge between 08:00 and 08:30 and you see a Silver Grey BMW double parked opposire Fazio's Gym then please report it to the Perth City Council's parking department. 8-(

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Had a run-in with the video drivers (last mentioned /m28 ) again. As near as I can can tell the problem seems to fix after you modifiy the timestamp on the /etc/modules.conf file. So when I got another kernel security update last week I decided to test this theory. So, of course, the Nvidia drivers don't even blink when the machine is rebooted after the update. Aaaaaarrrgggggghhhhhh!

---

I've added something new to my list of least favourite sensations. Having a couple of (cold) drops of Auralgan slide into your earhole. Gah!

Tues AM 29/06:
Loaded Pandora last night and used it to make a panorama of some sculptures at the front of the Midland Railway Workshops. I'm reasonably pleased with the result but it does show up the limitations of a tool that doesn't do distortion correction. It does hewever preserve the original image resolution which the tool bundled with Maureen's camera does not. For what it does, which is assist with manual panorama stitching in the GIMP, Pandora is great.

---

Potentially better than Pandora is Hugin which unfortunately throws a massive number of compilation errors under the latest versions of gcc. 8-(

Diesel Loco for "Spirit of the West" restaurant train in Midland Railway livery.

Edited by author 28-06-2004 08:08
Mon AM 28/06:
Saturday disappeared between a late wake-up and a double length session at JAFWA.

---

Sunday morning we went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Hippogryff was lovely. Hogwarts is certainly having trouble keeping "Defence against the dark" professors. Liked the film, haven't read the book. The actors are starting to get too old. They certainly don't look 13 any more.

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Sunday arvo was lazing around and cooking misc. stew. Sunday evening there was Seven Wonders of the Industrial World about the Panama Canal. It is interesting to draw parallels between the construction of the canal and the construction of the Burma railway by the Japanese. Then there was a episode of Meet the Ancestors about "The curse of Oxford Gaol" which involved a 400 year old epidemic, bodies being illegally buried in unhallowed ground, and the cadaver supply to Oxford's medical schools.

Edited by author 28-06-2004 08:05
Sat AM 26/06:
The Information Management section at work had its quarterly meeting yesterday afternoon out at the old Midland Railway Workhops. The venue was the old compressor room which was built in 1904. By my count there are 3 electrically driven air compressors, one diesel (heavy oil) driven air compressor, two electrically driven hydraulic compressors, and one nondescript machine that may have been an electrically driven air compressor but might also have been a steam powered generator.
The diesel unit was totally unlike a modern diesel engine, it ran at 250 RPM, had four cylinders each with a bore of around 50cm and a displacement of maybe 5 to 10 litres per cylinder.
The electric motors were probably state of the art when they were put in and must have generated a fair bit of ozone from their commutator brushes. There appears to be both synchronous 3 phase AC as well as DC motors sharing a comon drive shaft.
I also spotted the new Prospector rail cars and the diesel loco for the Spirit of the West mobile restaurant.

Edited by author 25-06-2004 12:17
Fri AM 25/06:
Back in /m23 I mentioned buying a pair of Paddy Pallin Tech Pants. I've been wearing them for my commute all week and I am really happy. They look acceptable and feel warm and comfortable. Not quite as windproof as I might want but acceptable and their perfomance in pouring rain has not been tested. I did make the mistake of putting a pair of rain trousers over the top one day and I arrived home with sopping legs from the trapped sweat. I reckon I'll be up for another pair of these.

---

The only problem with cycle commute days is that I don't pass by the galah nest hole. But Friday is a non-cycling day so I'm hoping to see something as I pass by.

Edited by author 24-06-2004 13:04
Wed PM 23/06:
I haven't yet been seriously rained on while riding to or from work. That may change soon.
In the end I didn't attempt to refurbish the rear wheel gear hub. A liberal application of CRC 5.56 got things turning freely. I need to monitor it though. The new rear tire is working nicely.

---

My daily commute takes me along my riverside exercise path except at different times of the day. When I go by in the morning I usually only see a pair of mountain ducks on "Lake Trinity" in the evening I have been regularly seeing 2 pair of mountain ducks, 3 or 4 black swans, and a pair of australian wood ducks. This morning there were a pair of pelicans paddling up the river in line with their wings held half open. Courting maybe? I have no idea.

---

I'm playing with a perl script to archive the the CSV dump of this topic. The result looks like this.

Westnet needs ITIL:
The (unannounced) 10 minute scheduled outage this morning stretched to an hour and a half. We need some risk assesment and risk mitigation strategies here guys.

Edited by author 23-06-2004 10:35
People trying to be friendly and one idiot:
One of the biggest trials you face as a commuting cyclist is car drivers trying to be helpful. This is not to say people shouldn't be helpful but they just need to ask the question am I helping or hindering this person? On my daily commute I have to cross Scarborough Beach Road which is a main traffic route but is normally fairly quiet at the time I pass through. So I turn out of Tyler street do my 20 meters down the road and I'm waiting to turn accross the oncoming traffic into Federation street. Then not one but two cars in succession come out of the business on the corner and take off slowly. So I'm wondering are they scared of the accelerator because it is wet, are they about to turn down Federation street but have forgotton to put their turn indicators on, or are they expecting me to turn in front of them? Both waved me across but in the first case the traffic approaching from behind the helpful person would have made it suicidal. I took the second offer but again the oncoming traffic was a bit close for comfort. I would only have had to shed the chain to be in dire trouble. 8-(
The idiot was the guy in the silver BMW who double parked in the bike lane while nipping across the (narrow) road to get a take-away cup of coffee. Moron.

Edited by author 22-06-2004 07:07
Tues AM 22/06:
Well the cycling went ok.My legs were a bit stiff at lunch time when I walked up the street to the shops but otherwise no adverse side effects. Its been raining this morning. To work in the rain ... Oh joy!

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Four mountain ducks by "Lake Trinity" yesterday. One tern flapping along the river otherwise just the usual suspects. My commute takes me along the section of river where I walk albeit at a different time of day.

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Just about completed a Perl script to create monthly archives from the CSV dump of this page. Also started doodling for a mini content manager. I want it to sit at a high level describing the site and directing lower level activity.

Mon AM 21/06:
Completed the steam engine refurbishment project yesterday. Various components have been re-painted with high temperature paint and then baked in the oven to set the paint. Others have been polished and lacquered. A bit of lubricating oil and it is all go.

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I stumbled accross a nice little Japanese tea merchant site. Go to "About Tea" and read about the various types of green tea.

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Riding to work today. This is going to be ugly. I've been off the bike since the end of April.

Edited by author 20-06-2004 11:30
Sun AM 20/06:
There was a certain amount of booty from Stanbridges yesterday. I thought I managed to keep my purchases under control but Maureen just had to have the mini Shaper / Router table for the Dremel 8-).

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Last night went off to a 40^th birthday party for Gary one of my gaming mates. Plenty of good food, plenty of conversation. Enjoyed myself but we sloped off at 11pm as Maureen was tired and I wasn't too keen on staying and getting a taxi what with the cold crisp temperatures that were lying in wait outside the house.

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Downloaded and installed BottomFeeder yesterday. BF is a "news aggregator client (RSS and Atom) written in VisualWorks Smalltalk". It works reasonably well but there are a few odd quirks that don't seem to adequately documented. If you have spotted and wondered about the stupid little orange "XML" buttons on web sites recently then you may be relieved to know that the XML garbage they point to is for the benifit of news aggregators. By providing your aggregator with the link the stupid button points to it can check to see if the site has been updated and prvide you with an article list. We'll see.

---

Paper comics for the week: Nil 8-(

Sat AM 19/06:
The Corellas were out in force yesterday. Dozens of them feeding on the grassed open area near Trinity College. There was a lot of jumping-on-the-back-of-your-neighbour going on. I couldn't tell whether it was fighting or mating. A bit of both I reckon as the reaction of the jumpee varied.
I saw a pair of mountain ducks, three black swans, and four caspian terns feeding (or, in the case of the terns, loafing) on the edges of "Lake Trinity". Also a dolphin puttering around at the western end of Herrisson Island.

---

Off to Stanbridges Hobbies this morning to get parts for the steam engine. Or at least that is our excuse. Mmmm! *Nods head emphatically*.

Edited by author 18-06-2004 11:45
Fri AM 18/06:
Saw both Galah's having a quick stretch and preen yesterday morning. Two pairs of Mountain Ducks down at "Lake Trinity" at lunchtime but no Swans. Plenty of Corellas on the river banks over at Burswood. You couldn't see what they were at that distance but every time a golf buggy went too close their unmistakeable calls drifted across the river.

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It's a kind of old link but I hadn't come across Mogi before. Kind of a virtual geo-chaching game for GPS enabled mobile phones.

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Cast an eyeball at this amazing cutaway of a cruise ship complete with how it was done in photoshop.

Edited by author 17-06-2004 08:35
Thurs AM 17/07:
I have a bunch of links that I want to include in the sidebar of my web page. But there isn't really room. If I widen the sidebar things will fit better but then the photo wont fit on a 640 wide screen. Actually it probably won't fit now by the time you take browser real estate into consideration. Hmmm. We can fix this ( I hope ).

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Yesterday's Nomadic research Labs page had a steam boat picture. I would love to own that kind of Edwardian steam river launch. Way out of my price range to acquire or maintain. *Sigh* I can dream.

Edited by author 17-06-2004 08:29
Wed AM 16/06:
I can't even begin to imagine where the Federal Government is coming from with its so called energy policy. I mean 1.5 billion dollars in tax breaks for petrol and diesel fuel users? And then, to add injury to insult, only 700 million dollars to renewable energy? What on earth goes on in their tiny minds? I need to read this in more detail.

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I've been looking at Blosxom the last couple of days. I want something to allow me to build these posts off line and rebuild the web pages as required. I don't think Blosxom is what I am looking for. I want a top down builder because I want to integrate a lot of semi-static information. Blosxom is very much a bottom up builder as it starts by gathering and organising all the blog entries and then building stuff around them. Still it is very cute. The Bloxom script is a process framework with minimal functionality and everything else is a plugin.

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I was going to have a little joke about engines and the kindness of mechanics. Let it suffice to say that I have stripped it and subjected it to physical and chemical abuses so that it will behave as I desire. At least a traditional steam engine doesn't have a microprocessor.

Thanks for being kind to Rob's steam engine, Stev.

Edited by author 15-06-2004 12:46
Tues AM 15/06:
Found out yesterday that the Robert Stevenson who built the Bell Rock lighthouse was the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson the novelist. One strange thing: the show stated that Rennie wanted to copy the Eddystone lighthouse but Stevenson wanted a broader flatter base. Yet what I have been able to find on the web seems to claim that the opposite was true. Strange.

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One of the Galahs was sunning itself and preening outside the family hole yesterday morning. I must borrow Maureen's digital camera and get a pix or two for this journal. The Corellas were back in the trees behind Trinity College at lunchtime and an even dozen Black Swans had joined the Mountain Ducks forarging at "Lake Trinity". The Silver Gulls have started to regroup in their usual loafing spots.

Mon AM 14/06
Good nights TV last night. Seven Wonders of the Industrial World was about the Bell Rock lighthouse. Bell rock is an 600 meter long sandstone reef about 20 Km off the east coast of Scotland and right smack in the fairway for several Scottish ports. The program was about the building of the lighthouse in the early 19th Century on a chunk of real estate that is only above water for four hours per day. Bell rock is also known as Inchcape rock as featured in the ballad of that name.

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Next up was Meet the Ancestors on SBS's Lost Worlds segment. This week was about about digging up a Hawker Hurricane lost during the German invasion of France in 1940. The pilot had baled out and was on hand for the excavation. After one of his pilots had been just missed by fire from a German aircraft he was dogfighting, the Squadron leader of Nr 1 Squadron ordered all of their planes to be fitted (against regulations) with an armoured bulkhead behind the pilots. The thickest plate looks like a half inch slab behind the pilots head. When the cockpit armour from Billy Drake's Hurricane was recovered they found that it had stopped a machine gun bullet from hitting him in the back of the head.

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After all that there was 2001: A Space Odyssey which I watched until the light show started. This really needs to be watched on a big screen. I remember we tried to get a 16mm print for Swancon 2 and we were told sorry it is embargoed for at least 5 years. Then Star Wars came out and they couldn't get it back into circulation fast enough.

Edited by author 14-06-2004 15:53
Sun AM 13/06:
I got some lamb shanks from the butcher yesterday and used them to make Shahi Rogan Josh. By my count this dish uses 15 spices from asafoetida to tumeric. I've made this dish bfore and while it is nice I don't think the result is in proportion to the number of spices used. Luckily the actual cooking process is simple. A yoghurt and spice marinade and a 4 step cooking process. Still, Mmmmmm.

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I have a stripped down steam engine on the kitchen table. Actually it is Rob's and it is one of the Mamod model engines probably of 1960s vintage. Its been degunked but the washers on the safety valve are a little disintegrated. Luckily spares are available. If I could work out how to get the Mamod transfer off of the firebox I could get the rust off and give it a coat of engine paint.

Sat AM 12/06:
Trying to use a CPAP machine with a runny nose. Fun? Not!

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The Mountain ducks (Australian Shelducks) were back foraging on the edges of lake Trinity yesterday. I've never seen them doing anything like nesting behaviour but there ia a pair or two in residence every year.

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Played Attack by Eagle Games with Rob, Leece and Gary last night. This is sort of beer and pretzels wargaming with a map of the world, lotsa little plastic tokens, and a spread of cards. Plays well but there is a great deal of chance involved. Getting a good spread of production cards can make or break your country. We didn't complete the game but leece was doing really well an I was fairly close second. Rob and Gary had been nibbled and were looking a little worn around the edges.

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Paper comics for the last two weeks: Girl Genius, #11, by Phil and Kaja Foglio. B.P.R.D., #4, by Mike Mignola.

Fri AM 11/06:
The Corellas are still about. Yesterday there were dozens of them feeding quietly on the lawns between the approach roads to the causway bridge.

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I'm debating whether I need to get the rear hub for the Trike serviced. I'm noticing that it is stiff to turn and while some of the literature says it is maintenance free I can confirm that after 10 years the grease turns to gunk. The unit is an old SACHS 3x7 hub from before they got taken over by SRAM. It probably needs to be disassembled, cleaned and repacked with grease. I've done this with a Sturmey Archer 3 speed under supervision of my dad but that was nearly 30 years ago 8-).

Wed AM 09/06:
Went for a stroll along the river at lunch time yesterday. The field between Trinity College and the river has its usual winter puddles (lake Trinity) and a pair of Australian Shelducks had turned up to investigate (as a pair or two do every year). Most of the Silver Gulls have moved on to more sheltered locations. And there is a large flock of Eurasian Coots nibbling on the new grass shoots.

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Just watched the last episode of volume 3 of Last Exile. This is a realy nice anime, interesting world, interesting characters, interesting story. Think flying battleships. Heh!

Tues AM 08/06:
Back to work after a public holiday yesterday. Throat sore again but that didn't seem to have much correlation with whatever was knocking me around last week.

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Seven Wonders of the Industrial World was good Sunday night. Washington Roebling lived to be 89 but didn't do any more Civil Engineering. Interesting to see that the first references to the modern name of 'Cassion Disease' as 'the Grecian Bends'. The cutaway images of the Cassion had some interesting things that weren't explained by the show. One was how the spoil was removed. I had assumed some kind of airlock but they used a grab shovel in a water filled column. Air pressure in the cassion kept the water from flowing out at the bottom and the end of the column is submerged in a pool at the bottom which stops the air from escaping up the column.

Sun PM 06/06:
Interlude off. Feel better now. Not so much sick as totally wiped out.

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Something unusual and cool from the net department: A site using an identikit style arrangement to make avatar icons.

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Haven't seen Troy yet but I did come across this alternative script

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I got the trike rear wheel back. YAY! Now all I have to do is put it back on the bike and start riding.

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Watched Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto the first of three films on the life of Musashi Miyamoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune. Made in 1954 and won an Academy Award in 1955 for best Foreign film.

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Off to watch the next in the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. Brooklyn Bridge.

You and Maureen get well soon, y'hear! Brrrrrr. Maybe it's not such
a brilliant idea to be heading to Narrogin this weekend.
BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Cold toes.

Gah. Woke up late, had to get M to give me a lift to work. I think I am coming down with M's version of the lurgi. Just in time for the weekend. Oh Joy.

Edited by author 02-06-2004 14:20
Wed AM 02/06:
Cold clear nights and freezing mornings. Well not literally but to 40 degree Centigrade adapted bodies they may as well be. And I'm losing insulation. *grumble*

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Those of you out there who have a Collins desk calendar refill on your desk (and lets face it what Austalian office worker doesn't) may have noticed the occasional quote attributed to WGP. The fact that these quotes are always on Wednesday prompted one of my co-workers to theorize that WGP stands for Wednesday's Good Proverb. In actual fact they are from a gentleman Willam George Plunkett. The brief biographical note is at the bottom of the page.

Tues AM 01/06:
Yep ... found some IE bugs with the new style sheets. Mostly due to IE using a different base font size to everyone else. Everything should resize nicely now. Mind you then there is the Q tag. Supposedly it denotes an inline quote and Galeon uses it to insert double quotes (stupid americans) but IE 5.x does nothing with it. Luckily due to another bug in IE you can make IE only CSS styles. Just don't get me started on Galeon and horizontal rules.

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Started watching the last disk of RahXephon last night. This show is everything Neon Genesis Evangeleon should have been.

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No Corellas anywhere yesterday. Most of the Silver Gulls were out on the river clustered into rafts with the occasional Pelican doing Great Eastern impressions. Also saw a pair of Pelicans chasing a trio of Galahs. It even looked like one of the Pelicans had a go at a Galah with its beak. Most unusual. A new crop of Pacific Black Ducks has moved in under the fig trees but they are skittish and not used to the pedestrian traffic yet. There were also a couple of Terns patrolling the river. Funny thing ... when a Silver Gull gets a beakful of food every other gull in the vicinity is on its case trying to get it to drop the morsel but a Tern which is about the same size as a Silver Gull can have a fish flopping around in its beak and nobody even stirs. Just goes to show the power of having a big beak I guess.

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Re Ibis: And now you know why they were defrocked. 8-)

Re Ibis: people at the Zoo call them "That thieving bastard what stole my sandwiches!"

Edited by author 31-05-2004 08:32
Mon AM 31/05:
Web page rework complete and up although it took most of the day. Even found time to fix a couple of Swancon pages although they didn't go up until this morning. I wonder if it will all work on IE 5.x?

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Sacred Ibis: A couple of years ago the name police got at this and proclaimed that as the Sacred Ibis of Egypt was a different species our species would henceforth be known as the Australian Ibis. Ptoui! Maureen and I have taken to referring to it as the Secular (or defrocked) Ibis.

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Lazy day yesterday. The huge pot of soup was made Saturday so no cooking required. Maureen spent some time refurbishing her mountain bike. Her body position is leaning too far forward for comfort so she consulted me which led to a great deal of descriptive waving of hands and pointing at pictures in the two Richards' Ultimate Bicycle Book. The outcome is probably going to be a new top stem to raise her posture.

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Watched the first Seven Wonders of the Industrial World on ABC last night. The subject was the construction of the Great Eastern steamship by I. K. Brunel. Ultimately it never ran at a profit because it was too large. Jules Verne travelled on it in 1867 and wrote about it in his novel The Floating City. At one point in its career it suffered a gash in the hull larger than the one that sunk the Titanic. But due to the comparmentalised double hull the passengers never noticed.

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Part 2 of Leonardo's Dream Machine was much as I expected. The glider flew, and the giant crossbow broke thus illutrating that today we know a lot more about making bricks fly than we know about giant wooden weapons. The glider was no more sophisticated than gliders of the 19^th Century an no closer to real flight. It flew because the builders knew which direction to tweak things in to make it fly and the pilot already knew how to control it. There was a larger amount of Leonardo lore in this episode. Over all a good show but it could have spent more time with the construction teams.

Edited by author 30-05-2004 09:23
Sun AM 30/05:
The simple rework of the web pages is escalating. Well ... the same colours are there and the main text is not so oppressive but I am not yet happy with the sidebar. *sigh*

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Poss: Wow, I hadn't heard of the bin opening behaviour. That long bill does make them excellent pickpurses. I've seen them in action at the zoo cafe.

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Saw episode 1 of Samurai Champloo last night at JAFWA. Interesting retro drawing technique. Reminds me a bit of Gad Guard and Soul Taker. The story engaged my interest and, not suprisngly, had echos of Cowboy Bebop. The fast forward / fast back and intercutting of the story lines means you do have to watch carefully to maintain your continuity. This might become wearing after 13 episodes. I think we'll keep watching this one.

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My copy of the Chrononauts card game arrived Friday at Tactics. This is an excellent game. You are a time traveller contesting the shape of (mostly) USA history from 1865 though 1999. There is a tableau of critical events (linchpins) and their downstream ripple effects. Players may alter the critical events which causes the ripple effects to become paradoxes. Paradoxes may then be patched to create new versions of history. The objective of the game is to either:

• Restore history to the version you remember.
• Gather the particular set of artifacts needed to complete your secret mission.
• Become totally famous through patching lots of paradoxes.

Addictive fun!

Re Sacred Ibis - lot of people hate them, I love 'em! They have huge hooked beaks but are surprisingly gentle when taking food from you. Not a sensible thing to do but in the past I haven't been able to resist.

Very intelligent animals - they've learned how to open the bins by hooking their claws over the bin lid, leaning back and flapping their wings until the lid comes off.

Sat AM 29/05:
Only one Galah in view yesterday morning and that was only a tail sticking out of the hole. There were reduced numbers of Corellas around although there were a score or so back in the sheoaks at lunchtime being "vewy vewy quiet". However there were Rainbow Lorikeets everywhere making up the noise level.

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Leece: During the incubation period, once the sun is high enough to shine directly on the entrance, the female Galah will come out of the hole, hang from the rim by her beak and flap her wings for a minute or two. I always thought this was more the equivalent of a few morning exercises to keep the flight muscle in trim. I can't see much buffing effect on the tree.

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Poss: Yep, off for the breeding season. For the non-locals: the inland areas have a lot of ephemeral water features which the ducks exploit once there has been enough rain to re-activate them. Ibis are much bigger and need more rain before it is worth their while leaving the easy environs of the Zoo gardens.

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Paper comic booty for the week: The Celestial Zone II, #11 by Wee Tian Beng.

Hi folks, just taking a break from designing tiles. Steveg, you mentioned the galahs were fluffing around their hole below.
I remember reading a description of galahs hanging on to the area
around their nesting hole and beating their wings. The author, wossissname, Arthur Upfield, who wrote the Napolean Bonaparte books, reckoned that their continual doing of this polished the area around the nest and made it completely inaccessable to snakeys. I wonder if it is so. Having done ABSOLUTELY no research, does anyone know offhand about it?

I remember talking to our head bird keeper here about the number of black ducks on the lakes - he said that, come the first rains, they'd be off.

It rained that day and that evening there were V formations of ducks overhead aimed at where ever it was they were going.

The ibis will be off soon.

Edited by author 28-05-2004 10:14
Fri AM 28/05:
The birds are on the move. The Corellas were flapping around yesterday morning in higher numbers than usual. When I took a walk along the river at lunchtime there was not a Corella to be seen anywhere. The Pacific Black Ducks were absent from their usual loafing spot under one of the native fig trees and there are hordes of Eurasian Coots out plucking at the new grass.

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Stumbled accross the NASA daily astnomical photo page yesterday.
If you have ever wondered about the paragraphs of fake latin text used in layout demos then have a read of this page.

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I have a number of page updates slated for this weekend. Reworked sidebar links, a shortcut icon, a new visited maker based on an technique from CollyLogic. I'll even bring the source in the page source page up to date.

Edited by author 27-05-2004 11:48
Thurs AM 27/05:
The Galahs were fluffing around their hole again as I went by yesterday morning.

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There have been a lot of Corellas hanging around in the sheoak trees at the back of Trinity College the last few weeks. They have been forming up into pairs and playing around the WACA grounds and police HQ in the early mornings. Probably they are searching for nesting sites of which there is a short supply in the suburban areas. Like most of the Australian parrots they nest in tree hollows (usually where a limb has broken off). But they are a sustantially bigger bird than the Galahs and need a corresondingly bigger hole. Not easy to find in an environment where trees never get that old. All of the bigger parrots are under pressure from nesting site loss. One common problem in the wild is feral honey bees taking over suitable hollows.

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Saw my Dietician yesterday morning. She wants me to lose 4 kilos over winter *sigh*. This time of year I want to eat warm food and hibernate. I'm already feeling the cold and the inside temperature is still only around 15 degrees Centigrade.

Wed AM 26/05:
I changed the text colour of this page from straight black to #333333 on Monday evening. It doesn't seem to make much difference on the TFT screen at home but the CRT at work shows a softer effect. Superflous Banter is having a little investigation of the effect.

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During the last two weeks four of the top CSS design gurus have had posted content that has broken their web site for IE 5.5. Two I e-mailed and they fixed their sites. One I don't care about. And one is broken in a minor way. Now given that a couple of these people are high profile "CSS is the only way" evangelists I feel like I am mowing tall poppies. On the other hand if they can't get it right is CSS ready for the big time?

Edited by author 25-05-2004 14:39
Mon PM 24/05:
The female galah came out of the hole in the plane tree and flew off with her mate as I walked past this morning. So eggs are not laid yet.

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I found out why the wheel build is taking so long today. The wheelsmith was waiting for spokes to be supplied. Except, the rear wheel uses standard length spokes that he should have available. The front wheels, on the other hand, have deep flanges to allow for the drum brakes and need an odd length spoke which I source from Greenspeed.

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Paper comics for the week are Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom, #4 of 4, by Ted Naifeh. Boneyard, #14, by Richard Moore. The Five Star Stories, #19 & # 20, by Mamoru Nagano.

Edited by author 24-05-2004 12:31
Mon AM 24/05:
Yesterday morning the visiting horde decided to visit the Rail Transport Museum in Bassendean. When we arived we found we were a couple of hours early so we jumped back in the car and sloped off to the Guildford shops. We spent an hour or so trolling the antique shops and having second breakfast lunch. In amongst the antique stores we found a little store with Japanese paper, fabric, incense, and teasets. As everything was quite reasonably priced I grabbed a small teapot, a couple of teacups, some peach green tea, and a couple of sheets of decorative paper. Maureen and Judith, both being dolls house constructors were right into the paper and fabric. Joseph wandered off next door into the book exchange where he was eventually joined by the rest of us. Then off to the other end of Guildford to look at historic buildings. This year Guildford is having its 175^th anniversary celebrations which makes it around the fourth or fifth oldest European settled town in Western Australia. Except for the Post Office, which is at the run-down phase of its maintenance cycle, everything is a lot cleaner and neater than I remember from my youth. Guildford is near to the limit of navigation for the Swan river in summer and used to be the major trans-shipment point for goods on barges coming upriver from Fremantle and going out on camel and bullock teams to inland areas.

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Then off to the railway museum. There is a substantial number of historic steam locomotives and passenger carriages with a couple of Diesel locos and other associated machinery. This time I managed to secure a guidebook so that I now have some information on the various loco's that don't have placards. Having been throught the carriages only last year, this was how I spent my time. I only failed to locate the V 1220 which had been withdrawn from display. The V class was the last of the freight steam locomotives and the second most powerful steam locomotive used in WA. You can find this type in Railroad Tycoon as the Mikado class.
Eventually we returned home, and packed J & J off on their way. They are off to Albany for a few days and then back to London.

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Sunday night on SBS was a Lost Worlds show Leonardo's Dream Machines part one. Two teams, each trying to construct one of Leonardo da Vinci's mechanisms with 15^th century materials in less than three months. The two mechanisms were a giant crossbow and a flying machine. I think the flying team have the easier time of it even if they still think that lift is generated by the Bernoulli effect. At least they know which direction they need to tweak the design to make it work. Next week we find out the results.

Edited by author 23-05-2004 09:52
Sun AM 23/05:
Spent most of yesterday afternoon at the state aquarium with Maureen, Judith, and Joseph. It must have been open for ... 15 years or so but I have not previously managed to get there. Normally fish don't do much for me but this was interesting enough. The centerpiece is a large pool with a 100m transparent walkway in the bottom. There are also a large number of small aquariums with small fish, a seal pool, a "petting" pool, and some intermediate sized open displays illustrating locations like Rowley Shoals. The seal pool has an Australian Fur Seal and two New Zealand Fur Seals. They are:

• Annie; 18 year old, 96 Kg, female AFS and the dominant seal.
• Julius; 18 year old, 135 Kg, male NZFS.
• Sally; 5 year old, 35 Kg, female NZFS.

Sally is a sub-adult and will probably be sexually mature at 6. The usual lifespan is around 20 years in the wild or 25 in captivity. I'm not sure that I have Sally's current weight right but she will max out at around 65 Kg. A full grown male Australian Fur Seal would be around 300 Kg and way to big for a hands-on keeper. It is unusual to have a dominant female in the group but Annie doesn't see anyone she regards as a male.

Edited by author 20-05-2004 19:48
Thurs PM 20/05:
The Galahs are moving into the hole in the Plane tree. This morning they were both there again and one was collecting leaves and taking them into the hole. Definite nest preparation behaviour!

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The bus coming home was a double size articulated unit. Most unusual on this route. I was very impressed with the skill that the driver displayed navigating it through the chicanes and traffic calming.

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My shirt pocket is replete with pens tonight. It contains:

• One Pentel Liquid Gell 0.7mm Roller Ball.
• Two Tombow Objective fountain pens, one red, one green with matching ink.
• One Pentel V disposable fountain pen (very nice) with black ink.
• One Waterman Hemisphere fountain pen in "red marble" (purchased yesterday) with black ink.
• One Waterman Laureat fountain pen (gift today) in "green mineral", empty.
• One Parker ??? fountain pen (not mine) in matt black, empty.

Someone at work had advertised the red Waterman as an unwanted prize, with attached price tag for $175. She also posted some pictures and I was able to identify it as a "Hemisphere" and value it from the web at about $US50. I passed this along and offered $AUS50 (about 70%). Yesterday the seller contacted me and said all the other bids were around $50 and did I still want it? Did I what! As the deal was being done one of my co-workers, Jan Owens, said she has a Waterman fountain pen and would I like it gratis? So today we had a fountain pen show and tell. And I brought Jan's favourite Parker pen home for cleaning in my ultrasonic cleaner. 8-)

Edited by author 21-05-2004 14:58
Wed PM 19/05:
Yesterday evening I didn't post anything because I spent a couple of hours getting the video driver working. The Nvidia drivers have to be loaded from the Nvidia site and cannot be distributed as part of he SuSE distribution. Every time a new OS patch gets loaded from SuSE it forgets the nvidia drivers. Okay so far except I can't work out why it stops and I can't work out why it starts working again after a few reboots. All in all it is intensely annoying.

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Some really interesting topics at the itSMF mini conference plus nibblies and a few drinkies afterwards. I think I get value from my membership. 8-)

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Still no sign of the rear wheel. It is going to be a shock to the system to start riding again after this break.

Edited by author 21-05-2004 14:57
Wed AM 19/05:
Madman release day today. I'm waiting for the final disk of RahXephon. This series covers a lot of the same territory as Neon Genesis Evangelion but does it a lot better IMO. I commented on NGE recently on a friends blog. There is a tendency among anime writers to fail to provide closure to their series so I live in hope that RX won't be like that.

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No work this afternoon ... off to the local itSMF mini conference.

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The real pages for Swancon 30 are up. There are still some details to be cleaned up but they function even if I did manage to leave off the CSS file an put up one wrong image.

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Time to be off ... must catch 7:30 bus.

Edited by author 18-05-2004 22:54
Hi Lukasz: Well, yes and no. This is kind of an experimental thing and I'm not sure what its future is. I did think of using Blogger or Livejournal but eventually decided to trial this before making that investment of effort. I am probably more likely to leave this as a commenting mechanism and use a couple of forms and some XML manipulating Perl scripts that I happen to have lying about to add variable content to the web pages. But in any case I'm not likely to make a decision for a while. My style is better suited to the live journal approach I'm unlikely to produce the kind of literate micro essays that you do. *envious look* 8-).

I wonder, Steve, when you port to a CMS system like Movable Type (or better not, after second thinking), WordPress or Blosxom (this one does not require any PHP and MySQL support provided by your ISP). Won't you?

Edited by author 21-05-2004 14:56
Mon PM 17/05:
Two galahs indulging in some mutual preening near the plane tree hole. Looks like they are planning to move in.

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The Swancon 29 pages are gone so we are trying to get the Swancon 30 pages on line asap. Decisions, decisions.

Sun PM 16/05:
Picked up a pair of Techpants from Paddy Pallin's on Friday. They are supposed to be worn under trousers but they are so loose fitting that that seems a little unlikely. They seem about equivalent to long lycra bike knicks but with no chamois pad and two thirds of the price. As I ride a recumbent the lack of a chamois pad does not concern me. My bum isn't being trashed by my bike seat.
Also picked up Cycling Outback Australia an "Ecotouring travel guide Cairns-Darwin-Perth" by Craig Bagnall and Nikki Brown. This is an interesting and comprehensive book based on the authors travels in 1999-2000 and published in 2003. The only problem is the authors make some really interesting route choices and don't provide much information on the alternatives. They also make some interesting pronouncements in the "eco info" and "historic/cultural info" sections.

Sun AM 16/05:
New colour scheme! I need to look in my photo files and see if I have a piccy of a Galah. Not happy with link highlighting yet either.
Got the framed Gasaraki cells back. We aren't happy with one ( not the framers fault ) and we sent half an hour discussing ways to mock up what we want. Finally we got smart, took a digital photo, and loaded it into the GIMP for fixing. D'oh.
I now have access to the Swancon web site. I neet to assemble the page set and get the maintainer to switch the link. We are still discussing colour schemes but I'm setting it up using CSS and XHTML so I can change the whole look of the site with a dozen keystrokes. Heh! You might also notice that strict XHTML loads and presents a useable page very quickly. In part this is because most browsers switch to a smaller faster parser that gives the finalised text portions of the page to the renderer very quickly.

Sat AM 15/05:
Just upgraded to QuickTopic Pro. Ads begone!
The rebuilt rear wheel is still not ready. 8-(
We put in a couple of anime cells from Gasaraki to be framed last week. First order of the day will be to collect them as soon os the shop opens.
I ran a short RP game using the Usagi Yojimbo rules last night taking a party of three through a short mountain pass adventure. The UY RPG uses the Fuzion ruleset which is not one that I am really familiar with. The combat works well but there isn't any mechanism for pitting man against the elements. I can see some GURPS bleeding over here. 8-)

Woot! Real times on the timestamps!
I dont know what the temp is but it is too cold. I must be down to ... oh like ten degrees ... centigrade that is.

Thurs PM 13/05:
It kept on feeling like Friday today.
I found out yesterday that one of my co-workers runs a dragster in his spare time. We had an interesting discussion about the engineering problems involved in running a nitromethane powered dragster. Start from a whacking great supercharger via a custom built engine (no stock parts) through a computer controlled multi stage clutch and a fixed axle to the rear wheels. The engine needs to be rebuilt after 10 minutes of run time.

Edited by author 13-05-2004 07:58
Wed PM 12/05:
Not much to report from me. No sign of my rear wheel. Buses through the bit of the central city that I need to cross are running unpredictably late due to congestion caused by preparation work for the new underground train station.
Maureen had a stimulating experience when the handlebar stem of her Dahon folder folded without notice during her commute. Luckily this happened while she was on the bike path rather than on the road.
A lot of the local bloggers are taking advantage of the new Blogspot templates. Some of them are quite tasty.
Greenspeed have produced a trike ute. Looks cool to me.
We've run out of new anime so we put Patlabor TV on for our nightly half hour. Gee, animation quality has improved in the recent stuff we have been watching.

Tues PM 11/05:
A pair of galahs checking out the hole in the plane tree again. No way of telling if they were the same pair as before but obviously no-one has moved in yet. The hole is a bit marginal as the entrace opens almost straight up and the male sometimes has to perch in the entrance with wings half spread to keep the worst of the rain out.
When I car or bus to work I often walk along the river bank past the back of Trinity Colledge and Glouscester Park Raceway to the East Perth Cove and back. Today there were 20 or so corellas sitting quietly in the trees looking bedraggled. Not usual behaviour for corellas and fairly late in the season to see them still around town.
About half way to East Perth Cove I have been observing a bees nest hanging from the branch of a native fig. The nest is under the canopy but not otherwise protected. Today there were just the ragged stumps of the combs and a few surviving bees drifting aimlessly about. The wreckage of the nest must have been cleaned away by the council workers (it was right above the path). The sight was like a bombed out city and made me feel down all afternoon.
Pah! I need a drinkies ... I'd better wait until Maureen gets home.

Mon PM 10/05:
Watched the first two episodes of Yukikaze last night and tonight. A little Independence Day, a little Top Gun and a layer about the relationship between Lt. Fukai and the Yukikaze the AI in his fighter. The aliens, codenamed JAM, invaded Earth through a gate in Antartica. The humans beat them back and have carried the air war into the alien planet codenamed Fairy. Both sides are deploying more advanced weapons. But at this point Earth still has no idea what the JAM are. Yukikaze seems convinced that the JAM are able to masquerade as earth forces and Lt. Fukai is willing to fire when Yukikaze says enemy. For Yukikaze they use a very HAL motif with a close up of a camera lens with a reflection of the cockpit although Yukikaze is not articulate and communicates through the aircraft systems.

Mon AM 10/05:
More rain and wind this morning. Going to work in it is kind of less interesting. Still the Sunday evening weather report said we had 30mm of rain for the weekend. That is a big improvement over the 18mm cumulative since the beginning of the year.
Westnet appears to be working for me. They appear to be using DHCP to force a specific IP address. I guess by using DHCP with PPP they already know who I am from the login before PPP is started. D'oh my stupid I guess.
Had a snap Swancon meeting yesterday .. I had dropped off the internal mailing list and didn't see any notices. Oh joy. Plotting progresses.
The only way to get reasonable priced meat for a stew / curry / casserole is to buy something like a roasting leg of lamb and cut it up yourself. I can't even get a reasonable price for hogget or mutton any more. They are just as expensive as prime lamb. And don't even mention the price of beef.

Forgot to say ... MADMAN are releasing a whole bunch of Studio Ghibli films to Australian Cinemas.

Edited by author 09-05-2004 09:42
Sun AM 09/05:
More rain threatened for today! [I you are wondering why I am excited about rain the look at the state of our dams.]
Saw the last two episodes of Witch Hunter Robin last night. I've seen the first third at home and the last third at JAFWA. And I'm watching the middle third as MADMAN releases them. Interesting premise, good writing, interesting characters (except for the lead male who could easily be replaced by a mannequin). 8/10.
Still having trouble with the Westnet account. Today the latest missive from Westnet says they have made my account Dynamic and assigned an IP address. Bzzzt ... mutually exclusive operations. When I have had some more coffee and breakfast I will try and login and see what they have done. Mind you ... to be fair, they do try harder and are more responsive than my previous ISP (who I am using now 'cause I have a little credit left).
Lazy day yesterday. Probably lazy day today. Sunday arvo is usually reserved for cooking a big pot of something to last until Wednesday. I think this week may be Porkolt out of Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Cookery, Top cookbook. I wouldn't mind seeing the TV series again either.

A blog covering the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Found on the comp risks digest. The articles refers to the impact of digital cameras on the avalability of records of this kind of abuse.

Sat AM 08/05:
Had rain Friday morning Yay!. Supposed to be a wet weekend.
Lots of thunder type rumbling Friday afternoon but that was merely the roadies testing the sound system for the Kiss concert at the WACA ground which is across the road from where I work. Seven semi's of gear into a huge temporary stage an 3+ days of setup time. No wonder they charge $AUS140 a ticket. No I'm not a Kiss fan.
Stupid Westnet reconfigured my account to a static IP address and neglected to tell me it was done. And the change order did not show up on my account history when I rang to enquire why their dial-up lines had become write-only. Then I went through the painfull process of working out all the other things I needed to change to support a static IP address. I suspect Bind still isn't handing off address lookups correctly but I can fix that.
Played Vinci last night. Evil Steveg won after Leece decided that trashing Richard and coming second was preferrable to trashing me, allowing Richard to win, and still only coming third. Weapons plus Fortifications rocks as an civilisation basis. Richard's Specialist Shipbuilders were mucho dangerous along the coast as well.

Thurs PM 06/05:
The back is improving ... I lasted until 1PM before needing painkillers.
Westnet is down for the second evening in a row. It is easy enough to use my dormant iinet account but I can't mail out with out re-configuring my mail service.
Watching Witch Hunter Robin an episode at a time in the evenings. Good stuff.

Oh dear, I've just discovered googlism from Lukasz's quicklinks. Rotfl!.

Hi Lukasz, Thanks for the pointer. I'm not really sure that is my scene. Too many ugly Australians whinging about how terrible we are as a nation.

Edited by author 05-05-2004 18:11
Still sore Steveg. Got Nurofen Plus from chemist. Codeine plus anti-inflamatory (Asprin) is much more effective than Codeine plus Paracetamol.
Poss is probably coming over for tea tonight. Out of deference to our collective diets (or fear of our collective dieticians) we are having low-fat, low almost everything hotdogs.
Checked out the rear tire from the trike wheel that is off being rebuilt and found that it is worn down to the fabric in places. Time to fit the new Hookworm!
Found more mistakes in Monday's entry. Must remember not to post under the influence of strong medication. Which reminds me I need to take some now and lie down for a while.

Steve, I don't know whether you're aware of the fact there is a Living in Australia blogging community; you may want to take a look at http://www.livinginaustralia.net/index.shtml

Dead Steveg day today. Plumber fixed drains with super plunger ... at least it isn't tree roots.
Back somewhat fixed. Must look out for Neurofen Stong on the supermarket shelves.
Detoured on the way to osteopath to drop trike rear wheel into bikeshop for rebuilding. Probably doesn't need it but I may as well get new Stainless spokes like the front wheels.
Watched last episode of Haibane Renmei last night. Nice series , pleasant but no great depth. Kind of feel good.

Edited by author 05-05-2004 17:59
Spotted two Pink and Grey Galahs sussing out a hollow in a Plane tree near work. Given that they tend to pair for life and re-use the same hole every year this is probably the pair that have been using the hole for the past two winters. They fledged two young'uns the first year and one the second.

Back hurts, kitchen / laundry drains blocked. Took pain killers, Plumber coming tomorrow. Back still hurting. Stupid back. Stupid drains. What next?

A quiet weekend. Mocked up a page layout for the real swancon 30 web page, made a pitiful start on the Anzac day weekend bike ride, and spent a fair bit of time fiddling and adding links to the main pages. As I add a link to the web pages it gets to come out of the overflowing bookmarks list.

Added a cycling page and moved some stuff there. Tweaks to CSS now I need to update the source page *sigh* maybe I can autogenerate that?

Well this isn't a blog but I may use it like one for a while. Feel free to comment question, discuss, or suggest anything about the pages or their content.

Welcome.