If I had to buy a non-Apple laptop, it would probably be a Sony Vaio. For something that I’d be looking at all day, nearly every day, it’s got to be something that at least looks nice. Now that Apple laptops can run Windows if they want to, that’s not such a concern for me anymore. However, I still note with interest whenever Sony releases a new laptop, if only to see what they’re up to now, in terms of design.

Has anyone else noticed the similarity in keyboards between Sony’s newest TZ range and Apple’s current MacBook? Interesting.

I think I might have latent hamster desires. When I stumbled across this Zorb thing while planning our New Zealand trip, I immediately wanted to do it. It’s described as a huge, human-sized hamster ball. I think I must see myself as a large, human-sized hamster because I can easily see myself rolling down a gentle hill inside one of those things. Since it’s up on the North Island, and we’ll be down in the South Island, we can’t check it out this time. However, there’s always hope for next time…

Melbn’s The Age newspaper produces a monthly glossy magazine sporting the quite unruly name of theage(melbourne)magazine. Despite the wanky name, it is really quite an excellent and well-balanced generalist magazine.

One of the articles in this month’s edition is about one of the patron saints of Melbn, Paul Kelly. I think every great city needs someone to tell its stories. For example, New York has Lou Reed or Paul Auster, Vancouver has Douglas Coupland, other cities have other people. These are people who write and sing about their cities as if they were actual characters in their songs and stories. These storytellers are special because they tell their stories in the style of the city they’re from.

Paul Kelly sings songs about Melbn. By and large, these songs are excellent. Truly magnificent pieces of storytelling, full of subtlety and grace; making a point without seeming preachy or trite. His simple words are inexorably linked to bits and pieces of Melbn: the MCG, the St Kilda foreshore, the Nylex clock. One day, when I leave here for some other place, I know I’ll be able to come back whenever I want to, simply by clicking on his name in iTunes. Right now, I know I can go to Vancouver whenever I want, just by reading some Coupland. He writes about Save-on-Foods, about that crap Chinese restaurant on the right side of Nancy Greene Way, on the way up to Grouse Mountain. He writes about Yaletown.

I’ve always said that Melbn is somewhat up itself, and has a massive inferiority complex. In some ways, this is justified, because it will never be as naturally pretty as Sydney or even Adelaide – but that shouldn’t matter. Melbn keeps comparing itself to other places and finding little things that it does better, smugly assured that because it’s done this, everyone will start liking it. That behaviour reminds me, in many ways, of an insecure person, always trying to make other people like them, because they crave that kind of validation. Melbn isn’t good enough for Melbn to like it. Melbn has to always prove itself in the eyes of its citizens, and the rest of the world (read “Sydney”).

So there’s this article about Paul Kelly. He doesn’t interview much, apparently, but he was full of gems for this one. Now here’s my point, the reason to write all these words. He’s managed to explain my feelings for this place. Here it is:

“The thing I don’t like about Melbourne is the way it worries about itself so much: all this constantly wondering whether it’s doing things world’s best practice … and this mania for having events here. There’s a boosterism here that I don’t like. Sydney people are not like that. They’re not always worrying about whether they’re better than Melbourne. They just like the place where they live and get on with it. So, yeah, I like Melbourne, It’s my home, but I love other cities too.”

Thank you, Paul. That’s it in a nutshell. I suppose it takes someone who’s lived elsewhere to see it.

I’ve mentioned CrackBook before. I’m really getting into it, more than any of the other social networking sites. I’m trying to figure out why. Perhaps it’s a bit of nostalgia, most of the people I have as friends there are people I haven’t seen in yyyeeeaaarrrsss. But I don’t think simply nostalgia would keep bringing me back for more.

I think it’s because it doesn’t hurt my eyes and picky design sensibilities to look at it all day. It’s not ugly and full of kiddies like MySpace (and GeoCities before it, and AOL before that). Back in the BBS days, for reasons that are probably lost in time, we used to call such people ankies. FaceBook is well designed – and this is speaking from both a usability and visual standpoint. It’s just a pleasure to use. New web tech is well-placed and not gratuitous, it’s an excellent model of elegant utility. They’ve provided neat hooks for external developers, and I’ve found some interesting desktop applications that take advantage of this (like a menubar status thing and an iPhoto Exporter ). Nicely done.

And today, I achieved a special kind of milestone: I have 42 friends.

I feel somehow cosmically fulfilled.

I’ve joined Facebook and it’s more addictive than crack. An old high school friend (and he is old now…) posted these questions. I haven’t done one of these in a good long time, and thought I’d give this one a go.

I’ve filled this out over a period of a few hours, so there’s a bit of temporal dissonance here.

1. How old will you be in five years? Five years older than I am now.
2. Who did you spend at least two hours with today? Mica, but we were unconscious through most of it. I’ll probably end up spending more than two hours with my team at work, but that hasn’t happened yet.
3. How tall are you? I’m 190cm tall. That’s about 6’3 or so. If I may digress here and espouse on how wonderful it is to live in a country that treats metric not as a half-hearted inferior thing (like Canada), but as the pure, simple and logical system that it is. A4 paper! Joy!
4. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks? I’m looking forward to my ski trip to New Zealand, but that’s a bit more than 6 weeks away.
5. What’s the last movie you saw? I saw the first part of The Last Supper on my computer, while waiting for 6:30 to happen last night.
6. Who was the last person you called? Tim. But he wasn’t there. I opted not to leave voicemail.
7. Who was the last person to call you? Me. I was testing our new phone system last night.
8. What was the last text message you receiveved? Vodafone, telling me I had voicemail.
9. Who was the last person to leave you a voicemail? It was Tim, wondering what colour Ethernet cable he should take with him to Sydney. (Aside: The people we deal with in Sydney keep saying things like “come down to see us”. Now, Melbn is to the south. From Melbn to Sydney would be “up”, not “down”. Their office is further above sea level than ours is, so that’s not it either. Perhaps they’re talking about the plane landing at Sydney Airport? That’s certainly down, but the sum total of the flight is practically sea-level to sea-level. Although, now that I think about it, Melbn’s Tullamarine airport is inland a fair ways, which would mean it’s somewhat higher above sea-level than Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith, which is right on the water. But I digress.)
10. Do you prefer to call or text? Depends on the situation. I don’t really care either way – just whichever is appropriate.
11. What were you doing at 12am last night? Sleeping. I’d had a certain quantity of beer last night, so my sleep was quite, um, sound.
12. Are your parents married/separated/divorced? They’re married.
13. When is the last time you saw your mom? August 2005.
14. What color are your eyes? Blue/Grey. I used to say “blue” all the time, but Adrian, a guy in year nine, was obsessed with saying “you have grey eyes” to me. So perhaps they’re grey.
15. What time did you wake up today? The first alarm went off at 5:55am, but I hit snooze. Finally got out of bed at about 6:15. Out of the house at 7:20 or so.
16. What are you wearing right now? Grey Gravis shoes, grey socks. Blue jeans with a rip in the knee from when I fell over and slid along a road and grey unnerpance. Black t-shirt. Gel in hair.
17. What is your favorite christmas song? Anything from Mojo Nixon’s “Horny Holidays” CD.
18. Where is your favorite place to be? There are a few places. But right now, the one I’m thinking of is the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver, near one of the decorative big pylon things, looking out to the west on a sunny day. There’s sailboats all over the place, mountains in the background, occasional bicyclists ringing their bells at each other. The gentle waft of beer-making is carried by a light breeze from the south. In my hand is a bag from Siegel’s Bagels. I’ll be eating one soon; but right now, I’m looking out over the water and getting lost in thought, in my memories of that place.
19. Where is your least favorite place to be? Marseille I was there a few years ago, during some kind of a birthday celebration they were having. My notes about the city in my little book were six words long: “2600 years old, smells of piss.”
20. Where would you go if you could go anywhere? There are so many. Perth, Cairo, Kagoshima, Capetown, that recently-discovered planet that might be somewhat Earth-like, Berlin. And more.
21. Where do you think you’ll be in 10 years? Adelaide? Spain? Vancouver? Sydney? I have no idea. I’ve leant not to plan too much. Going with the flow is so much more interesting.
22. Do you tan or burn? Surprisingly, given my complexion, I tend to tan more than burn. However, the sun down here in the south is fairly nasty.
23. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? The monsters in my closet. They were quick though – whenever I looked, they would hide. This made me even more nervous, because if they can move that fast when I sneak up on them, there’d be no way I could run fast enough to get away from them if they attack!
24. What was the last thing that really made you laugh? Lola’s reaction to a video she made of me making silly mouth noises.
25. How many TVs do you have in your house? One. It’s a Sony Bravia LCD. It’s very nice. Ooooh.
26. How big is your bed? I’ve never figured out this bed naming thing. My bed is the kind where two people can sleep comfortably in it. I have no idea what that’s called.
27. Do you have a laptop or desktop computer? My primary computer is a MacBook Pro. I run MacOS, Windows XP, Windows NT and Gentoo Linux on it. Often simultaneously. There’s an older PowerBook G4 that my family uses, and there’s a G5 Mac next to my desk at work that helps me out with various work tasks. I’ve also got a whole bucketload of servers, mostly Gentoo Linux and OpenBSD.
28. Do you sleep with or without clothes on? Without.
29. What color are your sheets? Kind of purpley-red. Mica picked them.
30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Two. Mica’s fancy osteopathic thing, and my traditionalist feather pillow.
31. What is your favorite season? While I love skiing, I do have to say that summer is my favourite. Although those crisp, cold sunny winter days are fantastic, they are few and far between.
32. What do you like about fall? Melbn does fall nicely – the colours are quite nice.
33. What do you like about winter? Melbn in winter is awful. Not cold enough to be useful, not warm enough to do anything. Vancouver has a decent winter, when it’s not raining.
34. What do you like about the summer? It’s hot! Melbn gets up to 40c some days, which is wonderful.
35. What do you like about spring? Not much. It usually rains a lot. Wearing a t-shirt outside for the first time in months is pretty nice though.
36. How many states/provinces have you lived in? Four.
37. What cities/towns have you lived in? Vancouver, Tokyo (briefly), Sydney, Hobart (Tasmania) and Melbn.
38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? Bare feet rule.
39. Are you a social person? When I’m in the mood.
40. What was the last thing you ate? I just had a fruity nutty brownie bar for morning tea. My tea was – still is – a herbal ginger thing.
41. What is your favorite restaurant? Tojo’s.
42. What is your favorite ice cream? I like black cherry galato from a place up on Lygon Street.
43. What is your favorite dessert? I had an apple cut up to look like tuna once at Tojo’s. That was my favourite dessert. For everyday things, I like chocolate, or cheese, or a light fruity thing, depending on what the main meal was.
44. What is your favorite kind of soup? I dislike pumpkins, usually. But – pumpkin soup with a dollop of cream on top, and some fresh cracked pepper? Yummmmmm.
45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? It varies. Right now, I’m using strawberry, but I usually tend toward the stone fruits, or perhaps marmalade. I do make a nice PBHC sandwich: Peanut butter, honey and cheese.
46. Do you like Chinese food? Yes, as long as it’s good. I really don’t like the greasy-spoon crap that masquerades as Chines food. Give me the real deal, and I’ll be happy. There aren’t as many proper Chinese food restaurants in Melbn, compared to Vancouver. I do like David’s though, just off Chapel Street. The service is excellent, and the food is wonderful.
47. Do you like coffee? Nope. I’m a tea man.
48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average? At least five. I have a Stefani water purifier next to my desk at work, and I drink lots of water.
49. What do you drink in the morning? Beer. No no no, only joking. I usually have a glass of orange juice and some tea. On the weekends, I usually treat myself to some proper Earl Grey.
50. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? On the top.
51. Do you know how to play poker? No. Although I’d probably be good at the poker face thing.
52. Do you like to cuddle? Humans and cats? Yes. Massive, Jurgen-eating mutant balls of boiling phlegm? No.
53. Have you ever been to Canada? As I was born there, I’ve been there quite a bit. Its neighbourhood has been getting a bit worse lately though. Pity it can’t move down here.
54. Do you have an addictive personality? I’ve never figured out what that means. Do I get addicted to things easily? Not really. Do people get addicted to me? Sometimes.
55. Do you eat out or at home more often? I eat at home more often than out, but we try to eat out once a fortnight or so. Mica and I have similar birthdays, so we pick a very high-end restaurant and pay lots of money for an evening out once a year.
56. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? Frank Sinatra and Bob Barker. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? Also there was a girl in my elementary school whose name escapes me at the moment.
57. Do you want kids? I’ve got one already. Don’t want any more.
58. Do you speak any other languages? I speak enough German and French to get by. I can also speak a tiny tiny bit of Japanese.
59. Have you ever gotten stitches? Yes, twice. When I was a baby, I had a hernia operation (the rattle was too heavy, perhaps). Also when I was quite young, I was running with a beer bottle, fell, and had some glass just above my eyebrow. When I’ve got a tan, one can still see the scar.
60. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Not that I know of.
61. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool? Pools don’t have beaches.
62. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seats? If I’m flying a short distance (especially to Sydney, because it’s beautiful flying into Sydney on a sunny day), I like the window. Otherwise, I like the aisle – especially on a long flight. I like getting up and having a wander every half hour or so.
63. Do you know how to drive stick? I learnt on stick shift, and my first car was a stick. (That sounds silly doesn’t it? My first car was a Volkswagen, but it had a stick in it). When I bought a car, I decided that if I was going to pay that much for a thing, it had better know how to shift its own bloody gears.
64. What is your favorite thing to spend money on? Food or music. Or musical food. Computer gadgets too, but only if they make noise or can be eaten with dip.
65. Do you wear any jewelry 24/7? No. I don’t much like jewelry.
66. What is your favorite TV show? Tricky. I don’t watch much TV. I like The Chaser’s War on Everything and Spicks & Specks. Historically, I like Third Rock from the Sun, The Twilight Zone (the original one, not that bad 80s remake) and good old Max Headroom.
67. Can you roll your tongue? Yes. See? :-o
68. Who is the funniest person you know? Jason’s pretty funny. Both of them.
69. *Question omitted due to stupidity of it Answer also omitted.
70. What is the main ring tone on your phone? It’s a sampled sound of an old-fashioned bell phone ringing. I love it. Brrrrrring!
71. Do you still have clothes from when you were little? No. But I do have a black long-sleeved T-shirt that was given to me by my friend Helen when I was in year 9. I remember it clearly because it was such an unusual present, but it’s one of my favourite pieces of clothing. I still wear it from time to time. Thanks, Helen. I have no idea where she is now.
72. What red object is closest to you right now? There’s a notebook in which I write all kinds of work stuff, and it’s got a red cover. Oh! And my chair is red! But I can’t see it because I’m sitting on it.
73. Do you turn off the water while you brush your teeth? Yes! We’re in a drought here, and every drop counts.
74. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? Closed. Bad feng shui to leave them open. Unless there’s a cat inside.
75. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bees? Bear. I’m not happy around insects.
76. Do you flirt a lot? Yes, and often. It’s fun!
77. What do you dip a chicken nugget in? I haven’t eaten chicken nuggets in years. Honey-mustard is nice though.
78. What is your favorite food? Tojo’s Tuna. It’s his own twist on tuna tatake, an absolutely heavenly dish. I could live off it.
79. Can you change the oil on a car? Nope. Cars aren’t my thing. I do watch Top Gear on occasion, and it’s brilliant. Not because of the cars in and of themselves, but because it’s a comedy show that happens to kind of have something to do with cars. I’m in it for the humour.
80. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? Yes, once – which is pretty good for someone who drove a red sports car.
81. Have you ever run out of gas? Never, knock wood. I usually fill up with petrol once it gets to about a quarter full.
82. What is your usual bedtime? Anywhere from 9:30 to midnight. I used to be able to be up until 1am or 2am, but these days I can’t function properly the next day if I’m up too late. And Friday nights? Pssshhh – I’m dead to the world.
83. What was the last book you read? I’m in the middle of What Einstein Told His Chef, a fascinating and well-written book about the science behind what happens in the kitchen.
84. Do you read the newspaper? On Fridays over lunch, I usually read the front section of The Age, plus their entertainment pullout eg and sometimes the business section. Sometimes we buy it on Saturday too, for the full-on dead-tree feel of all that stuff to read.
85. Do you have any magazine subscriptions? I bought Mica a subscription to delicious magazine for Christmas.
86. Do you watch soap operas? No, I prefer real opera.
87. Do you dance in the car? Nope, but I often sing.
88. What radio station did you last listen to? This morning, after dropping Mica off at work, I continued on to my office. I turned on the radio to PBS but they were playing some kind of boring funk house crap, and RRR was blabbing on about something (as usual), so I had it on TripleJ for the rest of the trip – which was about 2 minutes. Long enough to hear the end of that iPod-ad-song by the Fratellis.
89. Who is in the picture frame closest to you? I don’t have any pictures here, but I’ve got a printout of an xkcd cartoon. So, the closest picture to me now is a stick figure with a hat.
90. What was the last note you scribbled on a piece of paper? “TL- All Sarah’s L6 can be auto-approved not fixme”
91. *Another question omitted due to stupidity That last answer should have been omitted due to unintelligibility.
92. What is your favorite board game? I like Cluedo!
93. *Yet another stupid question We’re getting to the end!
94. When was the last time you attended church? It’s been a while.
95. Who was your favorite teacher in high school? Rob Sandhu and Ron Cross. Rob was (is?) a social studies teacher – Western Civilisation especially. He was interesting, and he taught very well. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and didn’t take – or give – any bullshit. Ron was a science teacher and fellow member of the unofficial opera club. He wasn’t well-liked as a teacher because he followed different rules than most of the others. I was privileged to know him outside of the school, due to the opera thing. He was a charming and brilliant man. An iconoclast, teaching high school science.
96. What is the longest you have ever camped out in a tent? Not long. I’m not overly fond of camping.
97. Who was the last person to do something extra special for you? Mica. Of course.

I should have known better. It’s a musical by Frank Farian, the same bloke that inflicted Boney M and Milli Vanilli on us. He didn’t bother writing anything new, so the musical is just a mess of songs by Boney M, Milli Vanilli, La Bouche, Le Click and Les Miserables. I made the last one up. These songs are very very tied together with a “story” that is Shakespearean in its proportions. Not because it’s any good, but because it was ripped off wholesale from Romeo and Juliet.

The only thing stopping me from clawing out my ears in an effort to save my brain is sheer willpower to save you, gentle reader, from this fate. It’s incredibly bad. Insanely awful. It’s boring, irrelevant, poorly sung, poorly acted and the world would probably be a better place if someone had simply said “no”. I would turn it off, but my brain is squashed up in the middle of my head (to get as far away from the noise as possible), and fine motor control is impossible. I can only hope the noise stops before I have to go to the toilet.

Do not buy this music. Do not go see it, if it ever disgraces your town with its presence. Buying it from shops for the express purpose of destroying it might be a justifiable expense. Run far far away.

Everybody’s going out and having fun
Wii are just fools for staying home and having none
I can’t get over how Wii set set me free oh lonesome Mii

A couple of months ago, I went and bought a Wii. It was a bit of a surprise, because after being to a few shops, the last place we looked said “Oh yeah, we’ve got piles of them”. What? Really? A place with piles of Wiis? Oh my good goodness! Now, a couple of months later, this Wii – the first games console I’ve owned – has made itself a part of life. We’ve got three games, but one is that one about the rabbits and plungers so Wii’re quite entertained.

But something’s missing.

When I turned it on, the Wii found and connected to my wireless network, and uses that to communicate periodically with home base. However, something is still missing.

We made all these little Miis in the Wii, but until we know someone else with a Wii, these Miis are stuck in our Wii, and they can’t visit anyone else’s. They like each other fine enough, but we think these Miis ought to get out a bit and mingle.

I’m hoping that you, gentle reader, might be able to help. If you have a Wii, please enter my number into your address book, and invite my Miis to your Wii for a party. Leave a comment with your number, and I’ll reciprocate.

My Wii number is 4000-6587-0219-3973. My Miis are nice, and would like to meet others.