Right, well this one’s kind of obvious, but cool anyway. Wanting to tell an American friend (yes, there are one or two worthy, gentle reader) what temperature it was today in Melbn, I immediately thought of Google’s nifty calculator feature. Apple’s Safari web browser (as well as a few others ) has a handy search bar that defaults to Google. So I just typed “40c in f” in there, and the page came back with my answer. Simple math works too, and if I’ve already got Safari open, it’s much faster than running the calculator.

Stepping back, it’s bringing the idea of external intelligence to an extreme. First, people would know how to change one format into another: add 100, divide by a goose’s weight in spring and if the answer is greater than 7.42, add 12, otherwise, cube root it and then add 432.45. When we couldn’t be bothered with that anymore, we invented calculators. Little dodads in the desk drawer that would figure all that out for us. Next came computers. Expensive thingos that can figure out all kinds of complex stuff, but the programmers thoughtfully include a calculator program. Now, with the little search box and Google Calculator, we don’t even need that. Just type something in the little box and a computer on the other side of the world will add 1+1 and send you back the answer.

That’s celery computing: “They” say that the muscular caloric “cost” of eating celery is greater than the caloric intake you get from it: a net loss. Similarly, the network, computational and mathematical cost of sending the answer to your dumb question though thousands of kilometres of cable, dozens of routers and switches, then (in my case) through the air over 802.11, then displaying it on the screen in all its anti-aliased outline-fonted glory is far greater than the cost of computing the answer in the first place.

I normally shy away from celebrity talk here, but this is too good to pass up.

Russell Crowe can’t even assemble Ikea furniture – what’s more, he felt like telling an interviewer. If I couldn’t figure out something from Ikea, I certainly wouldn’t tell a journalist. It’s a private shame that should only be shared with family and close friends.

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?

Taking my debt from nearly $40,000 to just under $10,000, while simultaneously establishing myself on the other side of the planet.

2. What was your biggest disappointment?

There were two, both involving women, neither of which I’m prepared to get in to here. Not yet anyway.

3. What do you hope the new year brings?

Another 365 days? I don’t know. I try not expect anything. I’d like to get my debt down to $0, I’d like to continue my furniture shopping spree by buying a chair and a bed sometime in the new year. A new PowerBook would be nice too (thereby getting back into debt again). Ummmm. That’s all.

4. Will you be making any New Year’s resolutions? If yes, what will they be?

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Every so often during the year, I resolve things (push-ups in the morning, eat better, etc) but I’m usually too drunk on New Year’s Eve to really think of anything worthwhile.

5. What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?

No plans yet. I didn’t know what I was doing for Christmas until the 23rd, so I don’t think I’ll really have NYE plans until NYEE, if you know what I mean.

• or other end-of-December festival of your own choosing. Fruitcake optional.

Best of the holidays to you, from all of us here at jurgen.ca, jurgen.id.au, and jurgenschaub.com. A website so big and important we need three domain names and at least that many personalities. Yup.

Take care of the ones you love, gentle reader. Best of luck to you in the new year.

Hugs and kisses where inappropriate,

......jurgen

I was at Ikea in Richmond (oddly enough, the Ikea in Vancouver is in a place called Richmond too…) for subsidised Swedish meatballs a couple of months ago, and saw the niftiest purple table in the showroom. I had to have this table! The colour was great, and the shape was fun, and also quite functional. I couldn’t afford it then, but I can now. This is the first piece of actual furniture I’ve purchased since my arrival in Australia. Wowee!

This afternoon, I went to Ikea Moorabbin with Lola (11 years old), Phoebe (8 years old) and Mica (mumble mumble years old). After a lunch of subsidised Swedish meatballs, we picked up “Vika Manne” (the table) and “Vika Curry” (the leg). Lola was pushing me to get the white legs, but I think the silver ones ended up being a better choice.

Furthermore, I decided that now would be a good time, gentle reader, to introduce you to my new work and play environment at home. I had taken a picture to document the fact that the table was at one point in time clean. That won’t last.

To the left of the desk, on the wall, is a poster from the Astor Theatre, a fine place that reminds me of the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver. Next is a collection of the pictures I’ve taken since I arrived here. Some have been featured on this site, some haven’t. There’s just about 40 up there, all in all. The computer printout, barely visible to the right of them is the receipt for my unclaimed return e-ticket to Vancouver, which expired on November 12. You can see the bottom of a bit of rosemary on the wall, and the very bottom left corner of a ziploc bag full of my hair that I cut off a few months ago.

On the desk, there are a couple of cheap speakers, my beloved Jet Girl, an iBook. There’s a cheap-ass Philips mobile phone there too, and a Sony voice recorder. A pad of paper, a couple of pens and pictures of friends from Vancouver. There’s more geeky stuff on the blue-and-purple thing (leftover from my flatmate’s old flatmate).

And I have to get a better chair.

1. List your five favorite beverages.

Hmmm. This is a tricky one. I like wine, so do I say “wine” or “Pepperjack Shiraz 2000”? I think I’ll talk about general beverages, then mention a brand or two I like. Oooh ooh! Here we go:

I’d say that ice wine is my favourite beverage, by far. It’s like an angel pissing on your tongue. BC makes the most consistently good icewines in the world. Gehringer Brothers make a good one, and if you can find one by Wild Goose, get it. The Inniskillin brand is often good too.

The others don’t really follow any kind of order. Root Beer (sasperilla) is good, especially A&W brand. Yumm! I like a good hot chocolate, especially with marshmallows. I complain about Melbn a lot, but at least they know how to make a good hot chocolate here. That’s three. Erm, what else. Ooh! Earl Grey tea with a touch of honey and a wee bit of milk. Love that bergamot. And lastly, for sheer utilitarian reasons, you can’t beat a nice glass of water. I like that one can drink the tap water in Melbn.

2. List your five favorite websites.

Mine. Duh. Fark is usually amusing, but not as funny as Melbourne weather. The CBC is the best place for news from Vancouver. Then there’s the recently-linked-to movies and music websites.

That’s more than 5. Whoops. And there’s still more too!

3. List your five favorite snack foods.

Apples. I like Apples. Dick Smith’s Temptin’s are like Tim-Tams, but better for the country. Lately, I’ve been eating lots of fruitcake. Yes, I like fruitcake. Insert joke here. I also really like Lebkuchen a lovely German Christmassy tasty thing. And hey. Chocolate rules any time of the day.

4. List your five favorite board and/or card games.

Uno’s fun. However, the last time I played it, I had my ass kicked by an 11 year old. I’m not too sure if I like it anymore. Cribbage is fun too, and one of the best things my grandmother ever taught me. Pictionary is great fun, and, similarly, so is charades. Probably the most fun I’ve had playing a card game was a game of Mao with a bunch of drunks while camping. If you don’t know the rules, I’m not allowed to tell you. Just get 10 people together with some alcohol and a few decks of cards, and we’ll all play.

5. List your five favorite computer and/or game system games.

I don’t much like most computer games, because they tend to use too many buttons. My favourite computer game of all time ran on my Palm III, and I tragically lost it (along with all my friend’s birthdays) due to catastrophic battery failure a few weeks ago. I can’t even remember what it’s called, but it only used one button. You’re a dot travelling through a cave-like thing. Press any button to go up, let go to go down. That’s it. Nothing else happens. I loved that game.

Next one is called Airburst. It uses three buttons, and there can be up to 4 players. You’re a thingo floating on balloons. Using a paddle, you deflect evil killing balls away from your balloons. If all your balloons pop, you fall down and die. Great fun and only 3 buttons.

How can I not mention Tetris? Four buttons. If anything, it’s produced a generation of people who are really good at packing a car’s boot.

SimCity and The Sims transcend the notion of buttons by providing a complete GUI. I used to have SimCity on my Palm III as well. I can even remember playing the original (and rather buggy) one on my Commodore 64.

The Register does it again. The article starts out as being an announcement that Google will google books and then veers completely off track into a discussion of how 1994’s Internet promises compare with 2003’s Internet reality.

The Internet (or, more accurately, the world wide web) was to enable “unlimited access to vistas of encyclopedic knowledge. Every body would be connected to every thing, and we would never be short of an answer.” Remember that dream? Remember loading up your first copy of Mosaic and seeing the NCSA home page? How about Yahoo!

In any case, the fractured and mostly hidden world wide web of today doesn’t look much like the promise. For example, I know where to go to get relatively accurate film and music information, mostly because these are topics that interest me. Where do I go if I want to get fair and unbiased health information? Certainly not Google, where drug companies have been vying for top spot for years.

What happened to the truth?
What happened to the dream?
What happened to all that lovely hippie shit?—Pete Townsend.

The Zagat are “indispensable” guides to the best “fooderies in town”, and feature mini-reviews “pieced together” from the quotes of “actual punters”, “smattered with quotes”, much like this “heap of words”.

Some of my words were published in the Vancouver Zagat. Ooooohhh. You may have noticed, gentle reader, that I can be catty at times.

Anyway, Zagat had published phrases that didn’t quite make the cut. My favourite ”’Breaking bread’ should not mean you have to use the side of the table.”

Whoops. I just realised that the blogger meetup happened yesterday evening. Sorry guys, I meant to show up, really I did. I was completely overcome by the sultry day (and the fact I haven’t been sleeping much lately) and fell asleep as soon as I got home.

I completely forgot until this evening when Kylie (no, not that one) called me out of the blue. There’s a sneak of Dogville at the Dendy on Sunday, but I can’t go due to a prior engagement. Dern! At least she didn’t berate me for not showing up to the meetup – which is what I thought she was going to do. Whew. Rather than say that to her directly, I’ll write about it on my site. Sneaky, eh? She’ll never know!

Erm, okay. Before I got off track there, this was supposed to be a mass apology to the Melbn Bloggo Collective for being an inconsiderate sleepy git. So, um, sorry. Better luck next time.

You da man, George II. You da man.