So Apple’s finally announced the iTunes Music Store here in Australia. Well, good. Sony/BMG is notable by its absence, but Apple’s claimed that there are more than one million tracks in there, plus podcasts from Auntie, SBS and others.

Apple’s also said that they’ve got a huge selection of independent Australian artists. Well. Let’s see. Because I’m looking for them, and because my usual online music purchase site doesn’t have them, I did a search for My Friend the Chocolate Cake. Cool. There’s one CD there.

How about the band that preceded them, Not Drowning, Waving ? One there too.

Let’s go a bit more obscure. I heard a band on the radio the other day called the “Drones”. Any sign of them? Nope. “Fruitbats”? Nothing. Okay. That might be a bit unfair.

How about “George”? They’re reasonably popular. Nope. That’s weird. I wonder if they’re on Sony/BMG. Tex Perkins ? Two of his collaborations, but no solo stuff. The Cruel Sea is represented, but only by one release. They even have songs by our neighbour and a new favourite of mine.

Apple’s released some lovely new pro-level G5 desktops, including a quad-core G5 which is so fast you have to wear a seatbelt while using it. The specs (particularly the graphics) are impressive – Macintouch has a great overview of the specs:

All new Power Macs will also include PCI-Express and will support up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1 Terabyte of internal Serial ATA disk storage. Four nVidia graphics card options will be available, including the Quadro FX 4500 with 512 MB of memory, the ability to drive up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays, and a stereo 3D port to connect goggles for stereo-in-a-window applications. All cards will include support for the 30-inch Apple Cinema Display.

Hold on a second.

_“A stereo 3D port to connect goggles for stereo-in-a-window applications”_

What?!

WTF is that? And it’s standard equipment? When did this happen? Looks like Stereo Graphics Corporation are the ones that do the goggles – their website makes it seem so normal. It’s frikkin three-dee, people! I want my Dock to jump out at me! Come on!

This is for Victor, who complained that there aren’t enough photos on my website.

Happy? Now you have to tell your boss about my vanilla-scented iMac idea.

William Goldman, writer of The Princess Bride is working on a musical version. I hope he doesn’t fall victim to one of the classic blunders.

I’m now running four browsers.

From left to right:

• Safari is my general default browser. It’s really nice now. It was slow as molasses, but something happened when I moved into this PowerBook and it sped right up again.
• Camino is Mozilla’s rendering engine inside a nice Cocoa wrapper. Kind of a nice compromise between the Mozilla thing and the Mac thing.
• Then there’s Firefox 1.5b2. We’re building a fancy web application at work that uses a bunch of fancy Firefox features, and Camino’s using some older code that is still a bit buggy.
• Lastly, and most recently (and the reason I’m writing this) is the Gold Edition of Safari – the nightly build of the new Webkit+SVG code. Theoretically faster and fewer bugs than the mainstream Safari release, now conveniently packaged and iconised so that it doesn’t interfere with the “regular” Safari installation on my Mac. I’m writing this entry in the new WebKit, and will keep using it as much as I can. The big test will be to see if work’s web app works as well in Gold Edition Safari as it does in Firefox 1.5b2.

So I work with salespeople. Some are more interesting than others. One of them got a sales call from overseas – someone in the US rang him here trying to sell him something. Judging from overhearing his end of the conversation, he was flabbergasted as to why this other sales guy was calling him, because he had absolutely no interest in whatever high-end or specialised product this guy was selling.

Now here’s the funny part. While most people would have said something like “sorry, I’m not interested. Where are you calling from?? Chicago?? Really! Well, bye!”, they were on the phone with each other for about ten minutes, dissecting the sales process with each other. Salespeople selling to salespeople is funny to watch.

Q: What is ET short for?

A: Because he’s got small legs.

Some film history has disappeared. The warehouse containing all the sets for the Wallace and Gromit films, plus Creature Comforts and Chicken Run has burnt to the ground. Some Wallaces and Gromits perished in the blaze, because they’re made of clay and can’t run unaided.

True to form though, Nick Park, credited as the creator of all that wonderful stuff, said that the recent earthquake in South Asia helped put the loss into perspective.

“Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn’t a big deal,” he said.

Good on ya, Nick. It’s sad, but not tragic.

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I changed the silly line at the top of the main jurgen dot ca page from “preparing for the new world ordinary” (I made that one up) to one that I’ve stolen from Tom Waits: “the piano has been drinking, not me”. It’s the name of a song from the late 70s, recorded on his Small Change LP. Here are the rest of the lyrics – they’re quite good.

The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep
And the combo went back to new york, the jukebox has to take a leak
And the carpet needs a haircut, and the spotlight looks like a prison break
And the telephone�s out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking…

And the menus are all freezing, and the light man�s blind in one eye
And he can�t see out of the other
And the piano-tuner�s got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother
And the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
As the bouncer is a sumo wrestler cream-puff casper milktoast
And the owner is a mental midget with the i.q. of a fence post
�cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking…

And you can�t find your waitress with a geiger counter
And she hates you and your friends and you just can�t get served without her
And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire
And the newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired
�cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me.

I love the Ig Nobel awards, they’re always good for a laugh. The 2005 awards were handed out a couple of days ago. It sounds like they had a really great time with lots of events, music and even a short opera.

Winners include:

• Locust research using Star Wars
• An experiment running since 1927
• Obsessive-compulsive food cataloguing
• Clever alliteration involving penguins