Blag

Hmmm. Been a while since I posted. Been an even longer time since I posted something personal, not an acid laced article on whatever got my goat at the time.

*Yawn* Exams are over, and now I have buttloads of free time until uni starts next year in February/March/whenever it is.

Things to do:

• Finish off that never ending amplifier project
• Finish ripping the 1m high stack of CDs to iTunes
• Repairing, tagging and sorting 40GB of MP3s
• Finally get a much delayed driver’s license -.-
• And also get a boat, gun and heavy machinery license, sometime in the next 2-3 years
• Proper part time job, not yet another under the table, cash-in-hand contract job
• Work on small business
• Rebuild the cupboards and closets
• Renovate the garage

Speaking of garage renovations, gotta start that today. To do list:

1. Set rodent and cockroach baits
2. Fumigate the garage with 1-3 insect control bombs
3. Throw out half the content of the garage
4. Bag/box remaining junk
5. Wearing a respirator, goggles and gloves, sweep out the garage
6. Vacuum up any remaining dust or dirt
7. Spray all surfaces with mould destroyer and clean with sugar soap
8. Re-bomb the garage
9. Air out for 2-3 days
10. Rip out old rotting shelves, and remove collapsed cupboard
11. Trip to Bunnings to buy a new lock, sealant and timber to patch the holes up
12. Rewire the garage with new mains cable, fusebox, fluoro batten, powerpoints and switches.
13. DONE!

And that will take the best part of 2-4 weeks, given the derelict state the garage is currently in. The building framework is structurally sound – the previous owner of our house (20 years ago) just happened to be an incompetent, lazy, un-intelligent handyman with about the same amount of common sense as a lump of dog shit, who consequently decided that he’d try his hand at internal furnishing and managed to make an arse of it.

Anyone else got their holidays planned out? The only other things I have planned is several 18ths/21s, a movie or two and a reunion.

Well, Windows 7 launched today, hopefully ending the embarrassing legacy of Windows Vista.

It’s going to be covered to death by the media, so I really can’t be bothered saying anything much – not like I’ll come up with any shockingly new ideas that several million other journalists and bloggers haven’t already thought of.

Apple didn’t quite manage to steal the limelight of the show, as some people predicted – Snow Leopard was launched quite a while ago, and there’s nothing radical in the new lineup of Mac hardware. Microsoft’s launch this time is meant to be low key, with more effort put into advertising over the coming months.

*awaits end of HSC, before buying a copy of Windows 7, 8GB of RAM and a new GPU*

What can I say? Microsoft managed to turn around their Vista reputation and create a product that everyone was interested in, then they blundered and hired the most clueless ad agency in the world.

*cringes*

*ears bleed and eyes shrivel up like prunes*

Really? OK, so Windows 7 Launch Parties is a kinda lame idea, but there’s enough geeky people around to pull it off, and there will be enough media coverage when Windows 7 is officially launched on October 22nd.

Quotes from Twitter include:

“What would compel someone to have a Windows 7 Launch/House Party?…seriously!”

“Got my life size cut out of a nude Bill Gates ready. Oh, I thought you said Windows 7 Raunch Party. Sorry.”

And joy of joys, there is also a dedicated Windows 7 Launch/House party website, so you can upload snaps of you and your friends nerding out over an install of Windows 7. Hosts also get a signature copy of Windows 7, and a party kit including branded napkins, streamers, posters and balloons.

If it makes you feel better, here is an alternate version of the Launch Party video…

$20 says that the 4 actors in the video have no fucking clue what they’re selling.

The box is locked, it is dangerous.

I have to live with it overnight

And I can’t keep away from it.

There are no windows, so I can’t see what is in there.

There is only a little grid, no exit.

Excerpt from “The Arrival of the Bee Box” – Sylvia Plath

It is the end…

…welcome to the dark side, so 5 people told me, all within a few minutes of signing away my life to Facebook.

I have caved in after 17.5 years. 17.5 years of hard work – staying anonymous to the rest of the world, keeping all my personal details out of address books, social networking websites, forums, SPAM and mailing lists – all to be undone in a few clicks of a mouse.

Welcome to Facebook, your account has been created — now it will be easier than ever to share and connect with your friends.

…the e-mail said. I personally think it should read:

Thank you for signing your life away – your business, is our business.

Facebook is such a ginormic waste of time, but a necessary evil to keep in touch with others and for Uni. I’m shocked at how long and how often people spend their free time on Facebook, and the amount of personally identifiable information floating around on there. Good thing profiles are set to private by default too, or I’d be in ICU by now on life support.

…it IS very addictive.

And yes my dear Bergamin, there is finally a picture of me on the internet. I am so not paying you the challenge money. Hmpf.

NB: Facebook is the ONLY social networking website that I will sign up to this year. Or the next. And the year after that. Ok, perhaps Youtube, but otherwise no more social networking! :@

Bruno. (The 2009 film). Went and saw that today, and it got me thinking.

Not going to go into a full blown review or rant – there’s enough reviews in the paper, coverage on TV, advertising and internet blogs about it without me adding to the chorus of “me-too’s”, but it did get me thinking.

LGBT right’s campaigners.

What a bunch of hypocrites. Take this case in point:

“Sacha Baron Cohen’s well-meaning attempt at satire is problematic in many places and outright offensive in others,” Rashad Robinson, senior director of media programs for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation told the New York Times. “Some gay advocates are worried that Cohen could reinforce negative stereotypes about homosexuals.”

Or even Troy Thompson and Gary Burns, self appointed “guardians of the homosexual flame” in Sydney.

Every year, the LGBT community gets together and holds a massive parade/celebration, whatever you want to call it; a.k.a the Mardi Gras. It seems to come across as some kind of symbol of unison, a way for gay and lesbians to be proud of their orientation, to be out there, and often offensively so. It’s the largest display of outlandish behaviour  in the world (even bigger than the Folsom street fairs, I think). The NSW government and City of Sydney council pour millions into it, all the locals hotels and bars support it and it gets a buttload of media coverage, pardon the pun. All of the LGBT right’s activists support it, and proudly proclaim the Mardi Gras as one of a kind.

LGBT campaginers hate the stereotyping and misinformation that floats around in society – cigarette rolling butch lesbians, guys with high pitched voices, rainbow socks, crew cuts etc, yet they seem to support the stereotypical yearly bashing of Christians, drag queens, semi-nude exotic dancers strutting around the city and so on.

Double standards much?

How can people take you seriously, when the majority of the exposure to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders is a parade of drunken, wild, stereotypically clothed morons every year?

LGBT’s have every right to be recognized as an oft discriminated against minority group, and can dress as outlandishly as they wish, but I can’t take the activists seriously.

The majority of the LGBT community lead perfectly normal happy lives, and blend in with the rest of us heterosexuals, but before their so called “right’s activists” speak out, perhaps they should re-examine their own behaviour.

Edit: Updated for clarity. Also, no I don’t think that Bruno is representative of the majority of LGBT’s; it simply served as a springboard for a train of thought.

Well.

Finally got around to actually constructing my website and banished all the lorem ipsum and stock placeholder images. 95% of pages have actual content on them too

It looks quite similar to the old ‘under construction’ site, but with a few artifacts as a result of its conversion to PHP and the use of a CMS.

There’s a few rough corners left – 3 pages missing content, and bugs in the LHS pane and horizontal navigation bar but otherwise all is good. The blog and wiki will also slowly start to be tied into the main website, instead of being separate entities, but due to the major design differences I doubt they will eve be completely unified.

Still can’t think of something appropriate to put on the home page though -.-

Anyone who suggests porn will be shot…

Now that that’s over, the blog updates should resume as normal. Well not one every 3 weeks anyway.

Blag moved sometime in the past 7 days… betcha didn’t know when

Ok, it was last night, and it took all of about 4 minutes to transition a blog, coupla files and a few databases over. And the DNS propogated incredibly quickly too

So… Blag is now in the ‘Telecom Center’ in LA, California.

*Correction to previous post, Liquid Web is in Michigan, not Chicago

*Blag is moving again. From the Liquid Web datacenter in rural Chicago to the Telecom Center in LA California.

Same domain name and URL  – just a different server though.

Los Angeles is much faster for Asia Pacific visitors. That and the fact I get a lifetime 70% discount for moving

US visitors can suck it up – they start whinging as soon as latency goes above 50ms which is insignifcant compared to the 400-650ms required to get to Middle Eastern countries and the Indian region. As for Europe… Chicago or Los Angeles makes no difference to them.

Speaking of latency, I figured out why Unwired WiFi hotpots are so shit in general… more to come on that later.

*May incur 24 hours downtime.

Welcome to blag’s new home at www.theparanoidtroll.com/blog

Accessing blag via the old Oz Techeducate adress will redirect to this new location. Pleas update all bookmarks or RSS feeds – they should redirect automatically, but one or two links may be broken.

Now to wait for Google to re-index the site

Blag is coming! This will be the new home of what was formerly www.oztecheducate.org/WP.

Check back soon…

Blag is moving home!

From the 2nd of February 2009, it will be hosted at www.theparanoidtroll.com

Access blag using the navigational pane at the top of the site, or go directly to www.theparanoidtroll.com/blog

All search engine requests, page vists and RSS feeds should automatically redirect to the new website from tomorrow onwards.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/entertainment/5236087/fireworks-storm-erupt-sydney/

So the Sydney NYE celebrations are supposed to be an epic success this year, with 3 new types of fireworks (horizontal, sparkler and sunpods), 2 tonnes more fireworks used this year than previous celebrations, 100% carbon neutrality bla bla bla.

Guess I’ll be alternating between watching it live on TV and listening for the ring of pagers, as the casualty wards fill, and they start calling in backup staff.

Meanwhile, back to conjuring up my list of new year’s resolutions to break.