State of the Union

Its 15 mins to midday on Sunday and I’m on the couch with my laptop watching Family Guy. Life is tough.

The move to Warrnambool has generally been a good one. Work is bearable and actually interesting at points. I’ve started to build up a decent group of friends around town. There’s lots of young people who have moved here for work. Doctors, Dentists, Optometrists, Dieticians, and too many lawyers.

I’ve been learning to surf, but going to pack that in for the year now that its getting cold. Quitting smoking hasn’t gone to plan, but will get there one day I hope.

Money is very tight unfortunately. Two people living off one very measly income is not as fun as its sounds. Not much to complain about though, we’re never going to have trouble paying the rent or anything because we both have parents that would help out before that ever happened.

I very much needed a break this weekend. All that remains to be seen is how many wills I will have to draft this week.

More eBay Auctions

I have up for auction on ebay 2 Texas Instruments Ti-83 Graphics Calculators here and here. Perfect for those starting high school.

I also have a 512mb RAM stick up for grabs from my now defunct Apple iBook G4.

Finally, I am also getting rid of BioShock for the Xbox 360.

Go get em.

Best Computer Ever

The iPod Touch is the best computer that I have ever owned.I never would have believed it but it has almost completely replaced my laptop for web-browsing when I’m at home. It is much better at contact and calendar management than my mobile when I’m out and keeps me entertained as well. I can’t wait for an iPhone now.  

No vote for you!

Little Johnny has paid his visit to the GG and the election has been called for November 24. If you are 18 years old and not enrolled to vote, sucks to be you because you have only until 8pm tonight to get on the electoral role before they close. It wasn’t this way before.

There used to be a 7 day period after the writs were issued during which you could update your details or get on the roll for the first time. But since the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill introduced by the Howard Government last year that is no longer possible. And we call ourselves a democracy. What a fucking disgrace.

At the 2004 election 136,000 people aged 18-25 enrolled after the election was called. That must be more than 1% of the entire adult population that have just been disenfranchised. How did we let the little weasles in the Liberal Party get this one by us? Maybe Australia was just too busy worrying about all those Sudanese refugees hanging around in groups of 3 or more and scaring the nice white people.

So just to sum up. 18 years old and not enrolled? Yes? Then the Liberal party have just denied you one of the most fundamental citizenship rights. And why is that you ask? Electoral fraud? I’m going to call bullshit on that one. Its because John, Pete, Phillip and the rest of their cohort are pretty sure that you won’t vote for them anyway (younger voters tend to go for the left of centre parties) and if that’s the case then you musn’t deserve a vote.

I swear if these guys get back in, I’ll have to leave the friggin country for the next three years.

In the interests of accuracy, you apparently have until Wednesday to enrol, which is still fucked. Don’t miss your chance to vote Howard out.

MP3 Downloads at Amazon Music

I just tried out the new DRM-free MP3 download service at Amazon. I fully expected that it wouldn’t work with a non-US credit card but with a bit of address creativity it went off without a hitch, despite the fact that it is meant to be US only. (If they really didn’t want you to do it they would force you to use a US credit card like iTunes)

I purchased the new Kevin Devine album which is not available on eMusic because he is now on Capitol Records, which I think are owned by EMI. It was available on iTunes in the Plus format but was going to cost $17.99 AUD. I make a point of paying for my music these days through things like eMusic but I find it difficult to make myself pay that much for an album anymore.

On Amazon it was $7.99 USD which according to Google is going to cost me $9.24 AUD . Bargain! It helps if you have a credit card that doesn’t charge a foreign currency conversion fee, but I’m not going to pimp my credit card company here.

Only downside that I could see of the Amazon store was that you have to download a stand alone application to purchase albums, but you can buy single tracks without it. According to Daring Fireball it only installs the application in the Applications folder on the Mac. Kudos to Amazon for starting out with an OS X client as well.

The songs are 256kbps MP3 which is the minimum that I’m prepared to accept in terms of quality. Above that I’m not going to pretend that I could tell the difference. A bit of competition for iTunes certainly can’t hurt either.

Check it out here.

Update: Amazon have started blocking non US IP addresses, and the download process for albums using the Amazon program prevents use of a proxy to get around it. (When you install the program, it opens a link to download a file, and I don’t know how to force that through a proxy) What a bummer. I’ll stick to emusic for now. I’ll never understand the RIAA and how their own paranoia prevents people from paying for music.

Microlight parachute mishap

Ouch. I’m sure that parachute seemed like a good idea…

links for 2007-09-25

• Iconfactory : Software : Ipulse
  (tags: mac software)
• Flying Meat: Acorn
  (tags: mac graphics editor software)
• Presumed idiot criminal uploads pix of self from stolen iMac – Boing Boing
  (tags: flickr crime)
• » New version of Gmail being tested | Googling Google | ZDNet.com
  (tags: google gmail new)
• ChooChooChooChooBeepBeep – Hello, this is DEERHOOF
  (tags: music deerhoof indie recommended)
• Featured Mac Download: Caffeine keeps your Mac awake – Lifehacker
  (tags: mac software)
• nobodymove!: Unreleased Doves tracks
  (tags: music)

Random thoughts for today

Right so birthday was last week. I’m now 23 and facing the harsh reality that no one cares about your freakin birthday when you get older. Had a really good dinner though on Sat night at the Grand Hotel in Richmond which has a funky Italian style dining room. Service was great too. The light on the horizon is the iPod touch that I will be getting very shortly to replace my ancient 20GB 4G iPod. V excited about that and glad that all the screen issues seem to be getting sorted.

I have also recently rediscovered del.icio.us and am trying to use it to find interesting stuff to read while I’m at work. I think I’ve read the whole internets by now and I’m bored. It also does automatic daily link posts which I have always hated on other sites but now have to have now. So enjoy!

Finally, my last day at my current job cannot come soon enough. The 26th of November is the day I think. Then its off to Thailand for a month, back home for Christmas and Jan and Feb off until I have to become a grown up and start wearing a suit everyday in Warrnambool.

Oh, and check out these photos of 40 of the new fatboy Nanos all laid out. Its all over the interwebs by now.

links for 2007-09-24

• Stream your iTunes library to your iPhone and iPod touch
• Mighty Mouse Repair Guide – How to Clean Your Apple Mighty Mouse
  (tags: apple hardware mouse mighty Macstuff)

Google Reader Notifier

There is a Google Reader Notifier or two out there. Who knew?

This one works pretty much exactly like the Google Mail and Calendar Notifiers on the Mac, the only downside being that it uses more than its fair share of memory.

It also provides a way to make Google Reader your default RSS reader in Safari which is quite difficult in my experience. Though I’m back on Firefox at the moment anyway.

Oh and the icing on the cake, it integrates with Growl, the system wide notification tool for the Mac. If you don’t have that either, then get it now.

First seen on Lifehacker